


The Less We Know

by Just_a_dead_fish



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Espionage, M/M, Slight Canon Divergence, Slow Burn, Unraveling the Tragedy of Duscur and TWSITD, Verdant Wind route, background dimidue of the angsty variety, what's better'n this guys bein spies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-17 15:54:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 34,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29102877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Just_a_dead_fish/pseuds/Just_a_dead_fish
Summary: When he marched to Ailell under the banner of House Rowe, Ashe expected death.What he got instead was an order to join the Hero of  Daphnel’s personal spy network. And who should he be assigned to work with, but Count Rowe’s own adopted son?Ashe likes to trust people, but Yuri doesn’t make it easy. He’s callous, manipulative, cunning - everything needed in a spy, everything Ashe isn’t - but he’s all Ashe has to rely on when Judith sends them on a mission to investigate rumors that the King of Faerghus survived his execution. Rumors spiral into conspiracies when they begin to uncover the true nature of Cornelia and the tragedies rippling from her fingertips.
Relationships: Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert/Yuris Leclair | Yuri Leclerc
Comments: 21
Kudos: 28
Collections: Ashe Big Bang





	1. Pegasus Moon - Bridges Burned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Professor Byleth and the Golden Deer House were the ones responsible for putting an end to his father’s life. And yet, by the end of that same year, he joined their ranks. Maybe it was some desperate bid to understand - what cruelty allowed them to do it, or what duty drove them to do it. By the time the Emperor waged her war, he did not understand. Now, five years fighting this war, he still did not understand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wooo congrats to everyone who participated in the Ashe Big Bang!! Thanks so much to the organizers who made the whole thing possible, and special thanks to my partner, Sol, for their amazing art! 
> 
> Ashe is my favorite character in 3H, so I wanted to focus a story around him trying to reconcile his ideals of knighthood against his decision to switch sides during the war in the Verdant Wind route. Also I'm still mad that he and Yuri don't have supports. Also Judith is hot. Sooooo... here we are.

Ashe stared at the lion, proud and noble, gnarled in the wind, and felt another wave of nausea rise in his throat. The grey insignia stared back, stitched eyes cold with judgement. Cheeks already numbed from red back to white, looked east to the expanse of black rock that rose like a desolated fortress into the distance. Lord Gwendal, still conferring with his generals, caught sight of Ashe and beckoned him to where a cluster of knights waited for the stewards to finish upraising the General’s tent. 

“Ubert,” Lord Gwendal nodded at him. Even though Ashe’s status had died alongside his adoptive father, Lord Gwendal always remembered his name. “The crater of The Valley of Torment is two miles due east. Our informant told us that the forces from Garreg Mach and Daphnel will be meeting up tomorrow, but we will need to send a scout for confirmation.” 

“I would be honored to go,” Ashe said. Lord Gwendal gave a gruff nod and handed Ashe a scroll of parchment. 

“We’ve marked where we believe their encampments will be, as well as the relative numbers we expect from either side. Report back before dark.” 

“Yes, Sir.” Ashe accepted the scroll with a bow. Lord Gwendal turned back to the group of knights. Ashe was happy to push his legs beyond exhaustion for the chance to still his mind.

Blackened spikes of stone jutted from the ground like canine teeth of a mouth that would snap shut and swallow him whole. Ailell, The Valley of Torment - Ashe had heard tell of this place before, but it wasn’t the legends of the Goddess’ wrath that filled his stomach with bile. The march from Rowe territory had been arduous, mired in mounting waves of guilt and regret, but he would repeat it a thousand times over if it meant tomorrow never had to come. 

The sun, for what little it was worth through a gauze of grey clouds, was still high in the sky. The sounds of camp carried far up the terrain, rushing through the jagged rocks like a flood. Within the wind, the voices of those still-living soldiers became as ghosts. Nearly five years, he’d spent in the company of these soldiers -some so young this would be their first battle, some so hardened the chance to fight in a molten crater was novel, many pushed here only by the shelter and hot meals life in the army would provide. 

A shiver tore at the back of his neck, freezing where sweat beaded from the steep hike. The brim of the crater loomed on the horizon, growing closer like a slow-moving predator stalking its prey. As he neared the edge, he could feel heat rising in billowing jets of steam. Down below, the molten remains of Aillel swelled and blistered like the acid in a gigantic, open stomach. If the Goddess was capable of this much, why had she let the war reach this point? Why could she simply not decide who was right and who was wrong, and end it herself? 

Looking back, the Rowe forces grey tents nestled almost imperceptibly among the teeth-like terrain. The rim of the crater was several miles around, but if he moved quickly, he should make it back in time. Keeping his eyes peeled for any other figures darting among the rocks, or any pegasus or wyverns dotting the skies, he set off. Checking against the map, he occasionally stopped to look into the distance, and from the south saw the glint of a large mass of armor a few miles away. It was much too far to see any banners, but his stomach churned. 

If only their spy had been wrong. If only there were no forces from Garreg Mach, and he wouldn’t have to fight against his classmates. His former friends. 

Circling around to the north end of the crater took a few hours, and several times he had to duck away to avoid the sight of a distant speck in the sky that could have been an enemy pegasus knight. He spotted the forces from Daphnel right where they should be, and in even smaller number than reported. He spared himself a field ration before heading back to camp. 

He didn’t realize how warm the air from the crater had been keeping him until he had to step away. His coat was wet paper against the evening chill. The camp had kept fires to an absolute minimum to avoid detection, so Ashe was already stumbling in bleary exhaustion when he realized he was almost back. The few soldiers not tucked away in their tents gave him hushed, dreary greetings. The howling of the wind, fabric whipping, and the unsettled shuffling of horses’ hooves laid his path to Lord Gwendal’s tent. The night had fully set upon them, now, and a slight warm glow spilled out from beneath the flap where that grey lion sigil stood in silence. Ashe and the guard stationed outside recognized each other, and exchanged a small nod. Before the guard could open the tent flap, a low voice leaked from within. 

“It is not our place to decide what is best for Faerghus. It is our duty to follow Count Rowe.” Lord Gwendal reprimanded, low. 

“Our duty - well. When I took my vows of knighthood, it may have been Count Rowe who inducted me, but my thoughts were for Faerghus. And now, I simply must accept that it is my _duty_ to help destroy the Kingdom?”A second voice spilled from the tent. Ashe didn’t recognize her.

“Yes,” Lord Gwendal said. A chill settled in Ashe. He and the guard caught the corner of each other’s eyes, sallow, and both looked to the ground. The knight spoke again,

“To think, I spent so many months, years, training to become a knight, and in the end, it is nothing but a chain.”

“Yes,” Lord Gwendal replied, soft. Ashe’s heart pounded through the numbness of his body. Lord Gwendal had always been the very picture of honor, a stoic and reliable presence atop a peak that Ashe had always yearned to climb. To hear him call knighthood a _chain- “_ But it is a chain that we must wield fiercely. We are soldiers, not politicians. If the Kingdom is to fade away to make room for the Dukedom, so it will be. Count Rowe has put his will to the Empire and Cornelia, and we must carry that will to its end. There is nothing else.” 

The young knight said nothing more. Footsteps approached the tent flap, and Ashe stood to the side to let the woman pass. He kept his head bowed low, but caught sight of shining metal armor as she flurried by. The guard announced his presence to Lord Gwendal, and ushered him inside the tent. 

“Ubert. You returned later than expected.” Lord Gwendal was seated at a table, lit from below by struggling embers. 

“My apologies, Lord Gwendal.” Knowing the general would not want excuses, Ashe merely bowed and returned the scroll to him. “The Garreg Mach forces are to the south, as reported. The Daphnel forces to the north are not so great as we were told.” 

“I see.” Lord Gwendal accepted the scroll, and laid it out on the table. He looked - old. Ashe had always known that the Gray Lion had been a loyal and unyielding force at Count Rowe’s side since before he was born. Now, even in his armor, he looked like a small old man. He did not hunch, but the dim light etched his wrinkles into crags deeper than those of Ailell. As he had not been dismissed, Ashe stood by, but the warmth of the tent did not reach him at all.

“Sir, I-” He started, throat a tangle. 

“Go on,” Lord Gwendal said. 

“Sir. I apologize for eavesdropping, and it wasn’t my intention, but…” he trailed off, knowing his heart but not the words to express it. 

“You aspire to knighthood as well, do you not?” Gwendal supplied. 

“Yes, sir.” 

Lord Gwendal grunted, and leaned back in his chair. He asked,

“Is it for that reason that your are fighting here, now?” 

The air in the tent was dense with smoke and a tinge of metal. Ashe inhaled, shallow, the sensation in the tips of his fingers slowly bleeding back in. They burned.

“I am fighting to honor my duty to Lord Lonato.” 

“Ah. He was an exemplary knight.”

“Thank you, sir,” Ashe said, quiet. 

“And, because Lord Lonato was sworn to Count Rowe, so too are you?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“And because Lord Lonato turned his blade against the Church of Seiros, so too will you?” 

“Sir?” 

“We fight on the side of the Empire to eradicate the Church, and for those who will overturn the old ruling order of Faerghus. Is this, too, bound to your duty to your father?” 

Ashe swallowed, his hands knotting behind his back. Could he deny that he still resented what the Church had done to his family? He had wanted to leave Garreg Mach after Lonato’s rebellion was brutally quashed. Even now, the only answer he could supply as to why he stayed was, _I was weak, and a coward._ But, as a student, he had experienced first-hand the kindness of those at the Monastery. Professor Byleth and the Golden Deer House were the ones responsible for putting an end to his father’s life - by Bishop Rhea’s order, of course, but they were still the ones to bring down the blade. And yet, by the end of that same year, he joined their ranks. Maybe it was some desperate bid to understand - what cruelty allowed them to do it, or what duty drove them to do it. By the time the Emperor waged her war, he did not understand. Now, five years fighting this war, he still did not understand. 

“My feelings on the Church do not matter,” he asserted. “And… I love Faerghus. I want to do what is best for my country.” It was such a stock answer that he was ashamed to say it. “I just want to do my duty to Lord Lonato.” 

“Hm. Then perhaps you are well on your way to becoming a true knight.” Gwendal said. 

Ashe’s heart should have lit up. One of the most renowned knights in Faerghus, telling him he had such potential - but even as he smiled, he was unsteady. 

_I will fight,_ he told the memories of Christophe and Lonato.

Gwendal dismissed him. He walked back to the tent where he was assigned, and slid inside without waking his fellow soldiers. He stared at the stretch of canvas overhead so long that it became a painting of blood and screams and in his exhausted sleep, his family twisted into his classmates twisted into corpses coated in ash.

-

Everything was burning. His eyes and throat were choked with smoke so thick it could be soot. The tang of metal was subsumed only by the sulfuric stench of molten rock. An arrow whizzed by his ear and he drew back his bowstring, shooting at the murky shape of a person through the smog. The arrow struck and the figure staggered. They struggled forward, other shadows stumbling beside them, until an eruption of flame torched them all. Ears ringing with the screams, Ashe held his ground. 

The person he’d shot had collapsed, but the others surged forward. He readied another arrow, shot, a scream - but the front line of the Garreg Mach forces had arrived in earnest.

A familiar call reigned from above, and oh, it was Claude, up high on a wyvern giving commands even as his Hero’s Relic rained death in his hands. Professor Byleth must be close. Ashe was going to retch; his knees were weak, all the strength he’d honed to draw back his bowstring clogged with soot. He loosed another arrow, but the figure darting towards him easily dodged and came at him in a flash of violet.

The armor knights in his battalion rushed forward, but Yuri dodged through them with a slash of a levin sword. Then, they were face-to-face, and Yuri stopped. The shock of recognition only lasted a moment before his mouth set in a loose line. If he weren’t surrounded by an abyss of fire, his tone would sound casual. 

“Do you truly intend to forfeit your life for House Rowe? There’s still time to change your mind.”

Ashe had prepared the words, repeated them over and over to himself until they’d become something like resolve.

“I finally understand Lonato. He knew the price of standing for his beliefs… and he paid it gladly. I will do the same!” He nocked another arrow, looking into the face of someone he used to call a friend. He was an enemy - an enemy! But Yuri just huffed, gave a small shake of his head, and Ashe hesitated at how - disappointed, he seemed.

“I like you - don’t be an idiot. Or maybe I’ll just have to smack some sense into you.” His voice was more tired than malicious. Ashe couldn’t loose the arrow. This was death, and it was fire and choking smoke and the sad resolve of someone very much like himself. 

Yuri struck first. One slash had Ashe staggering back, the magical energy of the levin sword seizing up his arms so his arrow went flying wildly. Yuri was the only cold thing amidst this hell of heat, and his sword came down again. 

-

Black. And then red. It was cold, so, so cold. He tried to move, only he wasn’t sure it was working, and there was a deep red ringing in his head. 

A warmth seeped into his chest. It ripped through the cold shock, and Ashe to jolted up with a gasping heave. He hacked out a mouthful of soot-clouded air. His chest were going to cleave open. The familiar feel of white magic stitching his body together still lingered inside his chest. Only then did he realize there was a hand pressed to his heart, another supporting his back. The fingers, left traces of the restore spell still sparking as they pulled away, then grabbed onto his forearm and hauled him up. 

Yuri’s face spun into view, pale as a cloud. Ashe tried to speak, but could only cough. Yuri’s hand left his arm and settled on his shoulder, still matted in red. 

“Alright, now you’ve given your life for your beliefs. So get out of here and live again, yeah?” With that, Yuri gave his shoulder a push. Ashe staggered forward, tripping over something metal, and belatedly realized it was the body of one of the men in his battalion. When he turned, Yuri’s back was already disappearing into the smog. 

Ashe felt another pair of eyes on him, and turned to see Professor Byleth. Pulling the Sword of the Creator from another of his men’s corpses, she gave Ashe a gentle smile. 

“You’re welcome back,” they said. They glanced back towards where the Garreg Mach forces were positioned, nodded to Ashe, and then charged back into the fray. He would have a clear shot to their back, but the bow was slack in his hand. He tried to breathe, but his throat burned. He could only plant one foot in front of the other, keep moving, over the bodies and fallen weapons and unfeeling rock, _live again, live again, live again._

_I’m sorry,_ he told Cristophe and Lonato. This apologies dried up like the tears that evaporated before they could fall. His lungs faltered, legs stumbled, and it was all black.

—

A familiar scent filled his dreams. It wasn’t sweet, wasn’t heady - but it was clear skies, the candle-wax of late nights in the library, the dust he’d get on his sheets after sparring at the training ground. When Ashe opened his eyes, he thought he must still be dreaming. How else could he see this ceiling again? 

Orange light streaked through the open windows, painting his old dorm room with vivid bars. Really, it could have been any of the student dorm rooms at Garreg Mach Monastery - there was nothing here to mark it as his. Not his books, his clothes - only a vase, with a single delicate violet watching over him. The same kind of flower that Professor Byleth had gifted him on his birthday. The sight of the single bloom on the windowsill brought memories flooding back in.

_“Happy Birthday, Ashe! Made extra sweet just for you!” Mercedes set the basket of cookies on the desk in front of him. Annette had called him to the classroom to study that evening, but when he walked in, he found his classmates lying in wait. Ashe, heart welling, tried to splutter out a refusal. Annette jumped in,_

_“We worked really hard! Maybe too hard… I accidentally set the first batch on fire…”_

_“The first three batches.”_

_“Mercie!”_

_“Thank you,” Ashe said, face coloring. “They smell delicious! Really, really delicious!” Mercedes and Annette laughed, relieved. Ingrid stepped forward, setting down a book with a beautifully embroidered image of a knight on a rearing steed._

_“For you,” she said simply. “From Sylvain and Felix, as well.” There was a tinge of annoyance in her voice - the two weren’t present, and Ashe rather doubted that either of them had helped Ingrid in the selection of the gift, but he was too overwhelmed to mind. He traced along its spine reverently, only tearing his eyes away to look at Ingrid._

_“Thank you! It’s so beautiful - thank you, and thank you to Sylvain and Felix too! Which tale is it? I’ve never seen this cover before!”_

_Ingrid shook her head and responded,_

_“It is not any tale - yet. The pages inside are blank.”_

_“Blank?”_

_“That’s right,” Dimitri said, exchanging a glance with Ingrid. The prince stepped forward to set a small wrapped package on the table. “We thought that - well, as you are so well versed in chivalric tales and are aiming for knighthood yourself, you could - that is to say, it could serve as a record of your own tales.” Dimitri looked down shyly, crossing his hands in front of him. In the small box he’d set down was a fountain pen, immaculate in its bright blue sheen, and a well of ink. A great rush of gratitude swelled in Ashe’s heart, but it seized up with the embarrassment that always foiled his attempts to interact with Dimitri as an equal._

_“Y-Your Highness, you really didn’t need to-”_

_“I know. But I wanted to, as your classmate. Will you not accept?” He tilted his head, and Ashe noticed Dedue giving him a faint smile from behind the prince._

_“I will!” Ashe choked out. “Thank you, all of you, really. I - I don’t know what to say…” Annette and Mercedes laughed, patting his shoulders as if to chase the redness from the corners of his eyes. The group stayed in the classroom, chatting and sharing the honey-sweet cookies between them, and Sylvain even dragged Felix in for a while before the latter stormed off to keep training. Ashe was almost dizzy - happy, of course, but guilty and undeserving that these amazing people would go out of their way to get gifts for him. When the hour grew late enough, the group admitted that they’d best turn in for the night, and filed out of the classroom. Ashe, at the tail end of the group, was stopped by Dedue softly calling his name._

_“Yes, Dedue?” Ashe asked, smiling up at him._

_“For you,” he said, holding out a hand. Quizzically, Ashe mirrored the gesture, and Dedue gently deposited two satchels, fingers brushing his palm. The two pouches were neatly woven, simple but solid. Ashe wonderingly picked one up to examine it. “Spices, and seeds,” Dedue explained._

_“Oh - oh, thank you!” Ashe brought the pouches to his nose - one didn’t smell like much, but the other had a warm, earthy aroma that made him ‘mmm’ out loud. Dedue chuckled. The deep sound settled between Ashe’s ribs. “What kind of seeds are these?”_

_“An assortment. Wildflowers, not suited to growing in the greenhouse. Perhaps they would grow well in Gaspard.”_

_“That sounds wonderful!” Ashe beamed, feeling like he himself could bloom._

Only, Ashe never found out if they grew well in Gaspard. 

He had tried to plant them, between when he fled from the Monastery and deployed for Rowe territory. He spread them outside the castle, in a small field by the well. He had to leave before they could sprout. 

The notebook and pen, he had kept. He had brought it with him to Rowe, bringing it with him on marches, just to trace over the cover on hard nights. He wasn’t worthy to write anything in it. How could he, when Dimitri was dead, and Ingrid, Sylvain and Felix were on the other side of the war? It was so selfish, to still think of it as a good-luck charm, when he had done nothing but betray those who had bestowed it upon him.

But now, where would it be? Lost in the battle? His bag, his weapons, were nowhere to be seen.

Shakily, Ashe drew back the sheets and sat up. Someone had applied salve to his chest and neatly bandaged his torso. His breath still felt faint, the inside of his throat raw. He must have collapsed while fleeing the battle, and had been brought back here. He was alive. Alive, and a traitor. 

He remembered the long nights spent silently crying into these sheets after Lonato’s death. The longer nights punching into his pillow, pathetic, hopeless, unable to vent his anger at anyone but the bedding. 

Suddenly, he couldn’t stand to sit there anymore. It couldn’t be that in five years, five whole years, he hadn’t changed at all? He paced around the room, noticed a small plate of food and a note beside the vase. The note was in Professor Byleth’s simple handwriting:

_Medical ward full, rest here until tomorrow._

He didn’t think he could stomach even the simple bread and veggies he’d been presented, but he gratefully swallowed down the glass of water. He could hear the occasional sound of people passing by outside, but the air was stagnant, silent, trying to drag him back to another time. There was a chip on the desk from when Annette had offered to help him clean, and had accidentally smacked a training lance against it. A strawberry-shaped stain on the rug from when Sylvain had tried to convince him to hide wine under his bed, and had spilled some. A hastily-stitched tear in the sheet, from where he’d torn through, the night after their mission to take care of the western church. 

He couldn’t be in here anymore. 

He tried the door, but the handle refused to turn. A lock, from the outside. This had never been installed on the door before, and it looked hastily done. Well - he was a traitor. Of course they would keep him locked up. The best thing to do would be to wait, to show his sincere thanks for being allowed to live, but - he was suffocating. 

Ashe flipped up one corner of the rug, and the needle he’d hidden there was still tucked in the underside of the weave. Ashe often felt ashamed of the habits he’d gained from his time on the streets, but it came in handy here. The lock clicked open easily. 

-

Sunset spilled through the cathedral, casting long shadows over the ruin of collapsed columns and shattered glass. Despite the carnage wrought on the whole building, the floors were clean enough to shine - it made Ashe think of Cyril, and it brought a small spark of hope to his dour mood. After the battle, the medical ward, the stables, and the dining hall were all brimming with activity, but the cathedral was mostly empty. As Ashe had hoped. He wasn’t here to pray, but - it was impossible not to think of those long days after Lonato’s death, where all he could do was pray, pray, pray for understanding that never came. 

Sky spilled in where the ceiling had collapsed over the altar. Yuri solemnly stood with eyes closed, hands clasped. He hadn’t taken Yuri to be the devout type - he had frequented the cathedral as a student, but this was his first time seeing Yuri here. The sight brought a mash of complicated feelings. Shame - that was a given, given how he had spoken so brazenly during their encounter at Ailell, only to immediately go back on his word and turn tail when Yuri healed him. Gratitude, of course - he would unquestionably be dead, if it weren’t for the man before him. But he couldn’t help feeling that it should have been Yuri fighting alongside House Rowe, his adoptive family.

“You’re staring, friend,” a low voice came. Yuri tended to speak quietly, in a way that made his presence very loud. Embarrassed at being caught deep in his thoughts, Ashe chuckled. 

“I just wanted to say thank you, for saving me. It’s thanks to you I’m still here.” 

Yuri quirked a small smile. His hair had gotten a bit longer, his face slimmer, but he still wore his makeup in the same way. Ashe liked to think he never underestimated anyone based on their looks, but it was hard to match up the delicate and slender man before him with the soldier who could dart through the battlefield dealing death like he were dealing cards.

“Glad you made it out alright.” Yuri nodded. 

“It was a close one,” Ashe said. The certainty of impending death wasn’t something he wanted to dwell on. “It’s a shame to see the cathedral like this. Do you pray here often?” 

“Special occasions,” Yuri said. It was an odd response, and Ashe couldn’t help but look on questioningly. “Thought I’d pay my respects to the old man. Gwendal, I mean.” It was like a chunk of ice started melting through Ashe’s ribcage. 

“He… didn’t make it out, then?” 

“No. Never was in his nature to surrender. Or negotiate.” Yuri sighed and turned to stare down at the crumbling remains of the cathedral’s vaulted ceiling. There was a twist to his lip that Ashe could only take as mocking. 

“He was only doing what he thought was right,” Ashe said. “It’s brave, to stand up for what you believe in, until the end.” Yuri looked over to him, brow crooked. Realizing what he had said, after how he’d cowered away and fled for his life just the day before, Ashe must have been flushed to his ears with shame. He couldn’t bear to look Yuri in the eye. 

“Beliefs can change, but death can’t, yeah?” Yuri’s words came in an easy lilt. 

“Not all beliefs,” Ashe said, and he realized he was slightly shaking. The icy pit in his stomach was rapidly heating, almost boiling. “There are some ideals worth holding onto, even if it means dying. That’s what duty is.” 

“Duty… Yeah, the old man always did take his duty very seriously.” Yuri had a faraway look in his eye, but his mouth was set in a scowl. 

“How can you speak so badly of him, right after he passed? House Rowe is your family, do you really have no loyalty to them at all?” Ashe asked, voice rising beyond what he intended.

“Family?” Yuri scoffed. “I’m never going back there. As for Gwendal - we have our differences, but I’m not speaking badly of him.” 

It really, really sounded like he was. The way Yuri said _duty,_ like it was a joke, or a delusion, made Ashe feel stupid. Stupid and cowardly and humiliated, and he had the gall to be angry about it. 

“You can’t just give up on family that easily,” he said. 

“I can.” The way Yuri stared at him, utterly flat and unblinking, told him this conversation was over. Ashe didn’t want to be here anymore. It wasn’t as if he had come looking for comfort, but - he had been happy to see a friend, and now - could he even call Yuri a friend? He hadn’t even really been a classmate - just someone he talked to sometimes, felt some commonality with based on their similar backgrounds. But, no, he didn’t think he could call this person a friend. 

Ashe grumbled out something about prayers and a rushed goodnight, and rushed out of the cathedral. He had dreamed of coming back to the monastery, of the times spent studying with Annette in the classroom, cooking with Dedue and Mercedes, training with the rest of the Lions - he knew none of them would be here, of course. Many of them were already dead, and even more were on the other side of the war. He hadn’t bonded with that many of the Golden Deer, and he was still too ashamed to seek out Professor Byleth. He had been a mediocre soldier under House Rowe, and now he’d be just another mediocre soldier under the Alliance forces. 

He was alone. 

His feet brought him out by the Goddess Tower. It was completely deserted. The tower itself was as stately and isolated as ever. He was swept up in a sudden impulse; the stone was rough and cold even through his gloves, but easy to grab hold of. He hauled himself up the side, finding footholds in rough-hewn rock where weeds had begun to grow. He used to climb the towers at Castle Gaspard just like this - with Lonato softly scolding him afterwords, and Christophe secretly cheering him on. He’d always felt so free, so strong, being able to reach any roof in the castle he wanted and look out over the grounds, the hills and creeks and misty woods that made up _home._

He didn’t look down as he climbed, climbed, but his fingers had started to burn. He found a high ledge by a window, deep enough to sit on, and leaned slightly back against the dusty glass. The moonlight was dulled beneath grey clouds, the sloping mountains dropped into a black abyss. 

He grew cold in his stillness, but was thankful it helped to numb out the anger and embarrassment. His grip on the ledge loosened, and his head lolled against the window. As soon as the tempest of emotions settled, he was left with exhaustion. 

Then - voices. 

He wasn’t sure at first - they were distant, caught up in the wind like - like _ghosts_ Oh, no no no no _no._ A shiver jolted down Ashe’s spine. He’d jump off the building before he let any specter catch him! The voices came again, louder, echoing off the stone alcoves and stairs. Behind him, through the window, Ashe caught the barest glow of pale light. 

Terrified, he dropped off the windowsill. Feet catching on a jut of stone, he gripped the ledge with trembling fingers, peering into the window. The glow grew into a monstrous light that clawed its way through the whole room, and four beastly shadows raked their way across the walls. The low voices rasped louder, unintelligible - the only thing keeping Ashe from fainting was the vast empty air between him and certain death-by-splattering. 

Only, the figures that stepped into the room weren’t spectral - it was four people, three of whom Ashe recognized. He rested his forehead against the landing in relief, then look up again just to make absolutely sure they were really living humans. Professor Byleth, Claude, Yuri, and a strong-looking woman in lordly golden clothing were standing inside the Goddess Tower. They were all facing inwards, discussing intently- Yuri and Professor Byleth’s mellow tones didn’t register through the dusted glass, but he could make out some of what Claude and the golden woman were saying. Infiltrated our ranks - thorough investigation - countermeasures, but need to send out more - rumors spreading through Faerghus - if it turns out to be true, we need a way to contact him -

Ashe really shouldn’t be listening to this. He should climb down from here and pretend he hadn’t heard anything. His feet were already straining to keep purchase on the narrow ledge. He shifted a foot, but - he slipped, plummeting to one side before his fingers doubled their grip on the landing. A clatter from where his foot had fallen scraped in his ears. He scrambled to find another surface for his foot to stick to. He finally found one, steadied himself, and looked down to find more footing to climb down. When he glanced up, a pale face was staring down at him. 

Ashe shrieked. He didn’t let go, but two hands snatched at his wrists and he instinctively leaned back, losing his hard-won footing. 

“What are you _doing_ out here?” Yuri asked, wide-eyed. If he let go, Ashe would fall to a grisly end. 

“Nothing!” Ashe stammered out. “Relaxing?” 

Yuri’s face twisted up incredulously, but he redoubled his efforts to pull Ashe in through the window. Ashe pushed his feet against the tower to help haul his weight up, but they didn’t make much progress until two more hands gripped one of his arms. Professor Byleth’s face was almost laughably impassive as they pulled up with a surge of strength that left Ashe sprawling onto the floor inside the tower. He propped himself up on his hands, gasping for air after the shock. Four faces looked down at him - Claude, unable to hide a snicker, Byleth, blank-faced, Yuri, exasperated, and the golden woman, with one brow raised and a sword drawn. 

“So, is this our interloper?” She asked. 

“What? N-n-no, I haven’t loped anything,” Ashe sputtered, very conscious of how close that blade was to his face. It was very fancy. 

“Uh-huh. And that’s why you knew of our meeting place and were waiting outside to listen in.” Her voice was husky, and she let her sword wave in her hand with a practiced ease. She wasn’t glaring, exactly, but she certainly didn’t look impressed.

“I wasn’t,” Ashe exclaimed. “Honest, I hardly heard anything! I was just - I wanted to be alone, so I came here, and…. climbed….” Ashe’s eyes drifted from the unknown woman’s face to Professor Byleth’s. He’d never really known the function of the Goddess Tower, only that it was very important to the church and very off-limits. Byleth blinked slowly. 

“Scaling the outside of high towers is relaxing for you?” Yuri demanded, arms crossed. Goddess, if Ashe weren’t going red from shame before, now his face must be burning to cinders. 

“I just think it’s fun,” Ashe squeaked. 

Claude burst out laughing. It got all the others’ eyes off Ashe for a second, at least, and he could stand up to preserve some last shred of dignity. 

“Long time no see,” Claude got in after his bout of laughter. “I wasn’t aware you had such a fascinating hobby. Though, didn’t we have you safely tucked away in your old dorm room?” 

“Oh, about that,” Ashe tried to smile and knew he was failing miserably. “Um. It just brought back a lot of memories, and I wanted some fresh air… Thank you, though, thank you for bringing me back here! To the monastery! I owe you my life!” He gave the most disgraceful bow imaginable and didn’t have the heart to look back up until the golden woman said,

“Is this a student of yours? He doesn’t look familiar.” 

“He didn’t join the Golden Deer until near the end of the term,” Claude responded. Byleth nodded.

“Oh! My name is Ashe Ubert! It’s a pleasure to meet you!” He flopped out another bow. 

“Right. Judith von Daphnel.” The woman’s posture loosened, but she didn’t sheathe her blade. A fresh douse of embarrassment sputtered out of Ashe - so this was the ruler of House Daphnel!? Not only had he made a fool of himself in front of a total stranger, but a very, very important stranger! She regarded him with no more trust or maliciousness than before, but a faint bit of recognition came into her eyes. “Oh - are you that transfer from the Blue Lion House?” 

“Yes, sir,” Ashe responded.

“Hmm. And we’re sure he’s trustworthy?” Judith looked to Claude and Byleth. Claude shrugged, but Byleth nodded resolutely. The Professor’s simple admission of trust let a bit of warmth bloom in his chest. Judith turned to Yuri.“You two know each other?”

“Somewhat,” Yuri acknowledged. Well, that was a bucket of water. 

“Somewhat,” Ashe repeated meekly.

Judith’s eyes settled on his face again, appraising in a way that made him want to shrink back. He didn’t, and instead tried to offer a smile that was more passable. She returned it. Finally, she slipped her fancy rapier back into its sheath. 

“So, you can break out of locked rooms and scale towers without being detected. Any other talents I should be aware of?” 

“I’m really just a soldier,” Ashe responds. “I use a bow, mostly, and Professor Byleth taught me how to ride a wyvern.” 

“Just a soldier, hmm?” Judith looked amused, and her eyes passed over the window, glass panes swaying in the night wind. “No, I think I’ve come up with a better use for you.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate Chapter Title: Betrayaillel at Aillel
> 
> Thanks so much for reading! I'll be posting one chapter a week, so if you enjoyed, hope to see you around more in the future~
> 
> NEXT TIME:  
> -I read too much into Yuri being bad at riding and flying  
> -Yuri stabs a tree  
> -Ghosts(tm)


	2. Lone Moon - A New Purpose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the sword on one side of his neck and Yuri’s arm on the other, pinned, Ashe was still. Yuri looked up at him, quirked his head, smirked. “You’re a spy, now. Don’t say you trust people so easily.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who commented and left kudos on chapter one! It's super encouraging!! <3
> 
> Content warnings for this chapter:  
> -a minor character using excessive drinking as a coping mechanism  
> -descriptions of dead bodies

“Can you- can you slow it down?” Yuri’s voice was louder than Ashe had ever heard it. Probably because Yuri was closer than he'd ever been, hands resting on Ashe’s waist. Probably because he was shouting above the roar of cold wind. But Ashe couldn’t help but think it was mostly because he was scared witless.

“Kyphonia is a ‘she,’ not an ‘it,’” Ashe chided. “And no, she can’t go any slower.”

“Right, ok, no slowing down, got it. But can she be less - bumpy?”

“That’s just how wyverns fly,” Ashe called. It’d not like he couldn’t sympathize - it had taken a while for him to adjust to the unsteady rocking motion of a wyvern’s heavy wing-beats. But the way that Yuri’s hands were clutching at his coat with every dip and tensing with every swoop up was - well. Ashe shouldn’t have found it funny. But he really did.

“Sending me into a death trap with a meat-brained lizard, all for some dumbass fairy-tale rumors… I’ll make that woman pay one day.” Ashe felt Yuri’s sour mutterings against the back of his ear more than heard them.

“If the rumors were that unfounded, Lord Judith wouldn’t have sent us out here, right?” Ashe tried to sound reassuring, but having to shout over the wind made it come across as accusatory. He scrambled to make himself more clear. “I really didn’t want to be assigned this mission, either - I want to be a knight, not a spy. I really don’t think I’m suited for this…” The gales stole his faltering voice. “I’m sorry you have to look after me.”

“What?” Yuri yelled.

Ashe shook his head. It was too embarrassing to repeat, with the two of them still on such awkward footing. Yuri grumbled something he couldn’t make out. Ashe surveyed the landscape far below; barren stretches of fields made grey by winter, thin patches of trees congealing into forests on the mountainsides. He inhaled a wet breath, a cloud scattering across his face. His fingers were already numb on the reins.

“We - we need to stop,” Yuri shouted like he was going to be sick. “Town. There’s a town.” He didn’t let go of Ashe’s waist to point, but vaguely tugged towards the right.

“Are you alright? We’re not even an hour out from the monastery,” Ashe pointed out. When he spotted what Yuri was referring to, he almost laughed. It was more a ramshackle collection of huts than a town. Was he that desperate to get out of the sky?

“I’m fine. Just - they could still have useful information,” Yuri countered.

“Hmm. Well, alright.” Ashe wasn’t sure where the surge of mischief came from, but he moved the reins to tell their mount to descend - much faster than she could have. They dropped. Yuri let out a high breath, arms latching around Ashe’s torso. He pressed his face into Ashe’s back, curled like a squirrel clinging to a thin branch. The familiar swooping in Ashe’s stomach pushed a laugh out of him, and he pulled up to even out their descent.

“You - are you messing with me on purpose?” Yuri growled, much less threateningly than his reputation would have Ashe believe. Not that Ashe paid attention to reputations.

“A little bit, sorry,” Ashe admitted. Yuri scoffed, but didn’t loosen his grip.

“How honest of you.”

“I always strive for honesty,” Ashe said. “And I honestly think we should keep going unless you really need to stop- if we’re to reach Fhirdiad in two days, we can’t land at every small settlement.” He hadn’t expected to have to take the role of the pragmatic one. He didn’t know Yuri well enough to either persuade or cajole him, but he’d always seemed the rational type, and hopefully he’d listen to the rational argument.

Besides, though Ashe’s fingers were still numb, Yuri clinging to his back at least chased away the chill. Ashe evened out their path, though they were flying low enough to be easily spotted from the ground. Yuri was quiet for a while, and eventually let his grip grow more lax.

“Fine. I’ll just - I’ll just get used to it.”

“You can close your eyes?” Ashe offered. “If you’re afraid of heights.”

“I’m not afraid, I just don’t like having to rely on anything but my own two legs,” Yuri said. “I don’t like riding horses, either.”

“It definitely takes a lot of trust,” Ashe placated.

“Speaking of - how long have you been riding this wyvern? Since back in the good ‘ol school days?”

“No, sadly. I just met Kyphonia earlier this week.”

“Oh. And - she seemed particularly trustworthy?”

“Uh, well, not really. I just liked her name…”

“Uh-huuuh,” Yuri drawled, and Ashe felt his grip tighten. Again, feeling an odd sense of mischief, Ashe continued casually,

“Actually, until earlier this week, I hadn’t ridden a wyvern for 5 years.”

Yuri managed to tense even further and muttered something that sounded like ‘why couldn’t we just walk.’

-

When they descended later that afternoon, Ashe thought he’d have to unpeel Yuri’s arms from his ribs before he could breathe again. Lucky, the absolute second that Kyphonia’s claws touched the ground, Yuri launched himself off the saddle. Ashe suspected he would dash off to vomit, but instead he just paced around, not the slightest wobble in his steps, stretching like he’d been through a bout at the training ground. The nonchalant look didn’t completely work with his long hair tousled into a bird’s nest and his mascara smudged out from the corners of his eyes, though.

“Good girl, good girl,” Ashe cooed to Kyphonia, pulling a few strips of jerky out of the saddle bag. He slid from the wyvern’s back, blood rushing back up his legs in a wave of prickling heat. Kyphonia accepted the jerky gently, truly well-trained, but wasn’t much for nuzzling into his hand. He unwound a long chain from around her neck and looped it around a sturdy tree, locking it in place.

“Will that flimsy chain work if she decides to fly off?” Yuri asked.

“Probably not,” Ashe admitted. “We should try to be quick, anyway.”

“On that, we agree,” Yuri sighed, trying to comb his hair back into place with his fingers. The clearing they’d landed in was about half a mile from Lapopie, a town in the northern reaches of Charon territory. They set off through the gloomy woods, but the black-streaked corners of Yuri’s eyes kept drawing Ashe’s attention. He’d definitely be embarrassed to let people see him like that…

“Ah, Yuri?” He piped up. “Your makeup got a little smudged. Here, I have a handkerchief-”

“Oh?” Yuri whipped out a small, round mirror from somewhere. “My eyes must have watered from the wind and cold.” And definitely not because he was terrified. “Thanks for letting me know. I have my own handkerchief.”

He strode through the scraggly underbrush towards a small creek that was flowing down towards Lapopie. It was probably dry during the summer, but with the intermittently falling and melting snow, it made for a healthily babbling brook. Yuri sighed as he dipped a handkerchief into the creek, and brought the frigid water up to wipe at his eyes. It took a little while before he flipped out the mirror again, and seemingly satisfied, turned back to trudge down the hill. Tone flat, he said,

“Wow, our first date, and you’re already seeing me without my makeup.”

Ashe laughed, bounding a few paces to keep up with him. He dodged around small patches of condensed snow, pine needles crunching underfoot.

“You’re pretty even without it,” he said. Yuri gave him a side-eye, calculating, and then smug.

“Thanks. I know.”

Ashe laughed again, relieved. Their last few meetings had been - well, a nearly literal battle to the death, and a semi-argument so awkward it still clung between Ashe’s ribs, but if Yuri held either against him, he wasn’t showing it. Even after their harrowing flight, he was putting in effort to joke around and keep the mood light. Ashe was grateful.

“Where should we start asking around?” Ashe put out.

“Lapopie should be large enough to have a tavern. If there really has been some sort of beast destroying Imperial encampments around here, it’ll be the first topic on everyone’s tongues.”

“Right. Though - I wonder why Judith wanted us specifically to ask around in person. I’m not great at gossip…”

“Because I’m the Savage Mockingbird, and you’re a turn-coat,” Yuri said. Taken aback, Ashe had to ask,

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, Judith doesn’t trust us, and doesn’t want us around the Monastery. So - here we are.” He waved his arms around the grey, barren woods.

“Why? Well - I understand why she doesn’t trust _me_ ,” Ashe put in glumly. He tried to keep the mood light as he continued, “But why wouldn’t she trust you? You’ve been at the Monastery this whole time, right?”

“In _Abyss._ She’s right not to trust me. Clearly there was a spy that leaked Claude and Judith’s plans to meet up at Ailell - why wouldn’t it be the cutthroat, conniving criminal with questionable roots? Honestly, I’d be worried there was no one with brains in charge if they _didn’t_ suspect me of anything.”

“Don’t talk about yourself like that,” Ashe said, distressed.

“I’m not saying it to insult myself,” Yuri laughed. “Believe me, I don’t mind that I’ve got a reputation.”

“But you shouldn’t be treated as untrustworthy and chased off just because of your reputation, either.”

“And should you be treated as untrustworthy just because you realized you were on the wrong side and didn’t want to die for it?” Yuri stopped, turned, pine needles crunching under his heel. He didn’t look like he belonged in the woods - too vibrant even in their borrowed plainclothes, too refined even with his edge of brusque wildness. “How do you think I earned my reputation, hmm?”

“I - don’t know? I don’t think reputations tell you much about anyone. I trust you, isn’t that enough?”

“Oh, is that so? Well.” A flash struck in front of Ashe, and he stopped with a yelp. A blade, long and polished, was embedded in a tree trunk, just shy of his neck. He spun, but Yuri was crowding his back against the rough bark. With the sword on one side of his neck and Yuri’s arm on the other, pinned, Ashe was still. Yuri looked up at him, quirked his head, smirked. “You’re a spy, now. Don’t say you trust people so easily.”

“That’s my choice,” Ashe said slowly. He realized, suddenly, that Yuri was shorter than him. It didn’t take any of the hardness from his eyes, but - Yuri had to glare up through his lashes, and they were long even without makeup. It was impossible not to notice, from this close.

“Your choice. I suppose.” Yuri’s eyes darted to the side, to his sword, traced along the long edge of the blade from hilt to tip, and continued across Ashe’s neck. Then he looked back up into Ashe’s eyes. “If I were an Imperial spy, you’d be dead right now. Then, well, I guess you wouldn’t be around to regret your choice.”

“But you’re _not_ an Imperial spy,” Ashe said, steady. He - really wasn’t scared at all, actually. He laid a hand against Yuri’s chest, not pushing away, but keeping a distance. Yuri sighed like a teacher working with a particularly dull student.

“You can’t be this naive,” Yuri bemoaned. He stepped back, sliding his blade out of the poor tree.

“You’re right, I can’t.” Ashe said, reaching out to hand a small object to Yuri. His violet eyes widened when he saw that it was his compact mirror. He reached into his pocket, finding it missing, and looked back at Ashe with a harsh glare that gave way to a snort. Rather than being upset at Ashe’s little pickpocketing trick, he looked a bit impressed. He reached out, and Ashe dropped the mirror into his palm. “If I trusted everyone I came across, it wouldn’t be a choice, would it?”

“I suppose it wouldn’t,” Yuri said, keeping his eyes on Ashe as he deposited the mirror back in his pocket. “Fine. Your choice is your choice. But just know - if you try this best-buds routine back at the Monastery, your reputation is going to take a nose-dive. And most people aren’t as… un-judgmental as you.” Then he turned, striding back down the hill and towards town.

Ashe had to smile a bit as he set off to keep up with him. As different as the two looked, those words reminded him so much of Dedue. Seemingly distant, but meant to protect. It left his heart in a tangle, but he could only press on with their mission.

-

“Just think of it as talking to people. Maybe you won’t even need to say anything, you have a face that’s easy to blab at,” Yuri said.

“Thank… you?”

“Sure. You remember who we are?”

Ashe nodded, but his feet didn’t want to cross the threshold. When Yuri swung the tavern door open, Ashe followed him in about as naturally as a crab did the waltz. From the way all the patrons stared at them, you’d think they really did have six legs apiece.

“Afternoon,” Yuri nodded at the barkeep. The man’s eyes were wary as bears coming out of hibernation. Gaze fixed on Yuri’s scabbard, he rumbled,

“Haven’t seen you two around before.”

“Just passing through,” Yuri smiled and pulled out a stool next to an older man. At mid-afternoon, the modest lodge was sparsely peopled by elderly, infirm, or downright morose individuals. A young woman sequestered in the corner with only empty mugs for company caught Ashe’s attention, but he trailed behind Yuri to the central bar.

“There much to see here?” The barkeep scrutinized Yuri’s slouched posture, but hardly glanced at Ashe when he slid onto the stool beside him.

“We’re not here to sightsee, just to pass through. Or do you only serve locals?”

 _Why are you being so antagonistic!?_ Ashe fretted at Yuri. Before he and the barkeep could get at each other’s throats, Ashe placed a few coins on the counter.

“Excuse me. Just some cider for me, please. And another for my - cousin.”

“Throw in some bread, too,” Yuri said.

The grizzly man looked between them like he believed they were ‘cousins’ as much as he believed they were frogs, but swept up the coins and turned to fill two mugs. Without any music or chatter to stifle them, Yuri’s words carried easily.

“Well, we should be able to make it by nightfall. How long do you figure she’ll make us stay for?”

“You know how she can be,” Ashe chuckled, hoping he came across as hapless instead of full of doubt at his non-existent acting skills. “Once she gets an idea in her head…”

“I know, I know. But seriously, you’d think she’d realize that fighting on the front is more important than whatever imaginary monster she’s dreamed up.”

The barkeep turned his head almost imperceptibly back; they had his ear.

“You can’t blame her for being scared, all alone back home…” Ashe tried.

“If she wanted us to come visit so badly, I wish she’d just said it instead of making up some story about a beast that’s ravaging entire towns.”

Two clinks announced the arrival of their ciders. The barkeep had an unmistakable glint of curiosity in his expression, but it was actually the old man beside Yuri that spoke up first.

“Pardon, young man, but are you two soldiers?”

“We _should_ be.” Yuri was a master of channeling his exasperation. “But right now, we’re headed home because his mom is convinced some sort of monster is gonna burn her house down.” He jabbed at Ashe with his thumb so convincingly that Ashe actually felt offended on behalf of his imaginary mother.

“Well - maybe there really is a monster!” Ashe blurted.

“There is.” The barkeep announced, sliding a basket of bread neatly between them. “Or something like it.”

“What?” Yuri drawled. “You seen it yourself?”

“No. But everybody round here’s heard tell of it. Dorgdone Town over the ridge was all but wiped out not two weeks ago.”

“Oh? And what makes you think it was a beast that did it?” Yuri challenged.

“‘Cause all them Imperial dogs that was occupying it died like pigs. And it’s not like those Lords care about anything but keeping their own lands, they don’t do jack.” The barkeep looked down at them coarsely.

“I’ll believe it when I see it.” Yuri took a swig of cider.

“Well, there’s someone here who really has seen it,” the old man put in. He looked to the woman in the corner. “Poor thing used to make the trek to Dorgdone to see her darling every month, only last time she came back saying he was dead, along with everyone else over there. All because of that beast...”

“Beast? More like the hero! It’s the only thing protecting small villages like us from those Imperial dastards!” The barkeep cut in. Another patron, an elderly woman, leaned on the stool next to Ashe and said,

“I wouldn’t be so sure… I heard the beast uses some sort of dark magic. I heard the bodies were so mangled, you can't even tell they're human anymore!”

“Who cares? You think the Imperial army cares about the way they’ve been killing us? I say the worse those dogs are torn apart, the better.”

“Well - what did she say about it?” Ashe piped up, looking back to the woman in the corner. The old woman next to him shook her head and replied,

“Just that when she last went to visit, she found a ghost town full of bodies. She don’t talk about it much. Don’t talk much at all, since then.”

Ashe looked over to the dour young woman again, heart heavy. He wished he could offer some sort of comfort to her, but - what could he even say?

“If she won’t talk about it, how do we know a beast did it?” Yuri asks.

“I don’t think it is!” A balding men crowded around them. “It must be a person. Why would a beast only target places the Imperial Army settled in?”

“It’d have to be more than one person, to kill so many soldiers,” another man answered gruffly.

“Could a person rip somebody apart with their bare hands?” Another shot in.

“Well - there’s one person who could. You know what they say about how strong nobles with Crests are, especially-”

“Oh, not this hogswallop again,” A middle-aged barmaid sauntered in, swatting the man with a cleaning rag.

“Hogswallop!? It’s anything but! The royal family-”

“Is gone!” The barmaid cut him off.

Ashe’s heart leapt. They hadn’t even brought up Dimitri, but the conversation flowed here naturally.

“Says that witch Cornelia! You going’ta trust everything that traitor spouts out? Now, all you may call me crazy, and fine, but I think his Highness is still alive out there and fighting for us!”

“Crazy,” the barmaid tutted matter-of-factly, and leaned against the back of the man’s chair.

“Maybe not,” a mellow younger woman with a missing leg joined in. Everyone in the bar save the woman by the window had been pulled into their conversation by now. “I had friends who escaped Fhirdiad after Cornelia took over. They said they never saw proof that his Highness was dead - the body she strung up was so rotted it could’a been anybody.”

“Not you, too,” the barmaid bemoaned. “I want his Highness to be alive much as anyone, but we can’t be waiting on corpses to come save us! Weren’t you up north with Lord Fraldarius? If his Highness is alive, why’d he abandon the war to go tearing up random Imperial soldiers?”

They bickered back and forth, voices rising. Ashe got the impression that they’d had the same argument many times over, and it was more for sport than anything. The only thing they all agreed on was that whatever or whoever was killing Imperial soldiers, they only did it with the utmost brutality. Once, Ashe would’ve cut in, said that he’d known his Highness, how considerate and kind he was, that there was no way he would kill in such a savage way. But, as with everyone, there was a side of Dimitri that Ashe had never known. He still remembered the guttural outburst that had so blindsided him when Lady Rhea had announced that the Flame Emperor was none other than Edelgard.

“-could be a savage ghost,” someone said, spooking Ashe back into the conversation.

“Oh, sure - if you believe in that bunk,” the barmaid sighed.

“Why shouldn’t I? If he really were executed - whether or not he truly killed his uncle, wouldn’t this war be cause enough for his spirit to seek revenge on the Empire?”

Ashe jolted out of his chair, the legs scraping a din across the wood floor. Yuri’s head whirled around, looking for some hidden danger, and scrunched his brow when he couldn’t find any.

“Don’t talk lightly about ghosts,” Ashe stuttered. He wiped his suddenly clammy palms on his coat. The tavern’s patrons shrugged it off, but Yuri had a worrying grin on his face. He laid his cheek on his palm and said,

“No? Why? Does the thought of a vengeful spirit, soul wrenched back from the eternal flames to wreak bloodshed upon the living, perhaps… frighten you?”

“Why shouldn’t it?” Ashe asked, voice high. Yuri shrugged, slow, and leaned back. He kicked his boots up on the chair Ashe had vacated.

“I suppose it _is_ rather frightful. Unbound by the mortal coil, it could easily rend human flesh like wet parchment… and no matter how many soldiers attacked it, they’d never be able to defend themselves, falling one-by-one before it-”

“I’m going to go- go talk to her,” Ashe blurted, fully pointing to the woman in the corner. The heated debate slammed full-speed into a wall, the crowd locking eyes on him. He looked to the slush-grimed floor. “She- she seems lonely…”

“Maybe it’d do her some good,” the old woman beside him mumbled. “If she doesn’t talk much, don’t take it to heart, dear. We’ve all tried.”

Ashe nodded, still flustered by all the eyes on him. Yuri, though, easily wrangled them all back in with a declaration that if his Highness had become a vengeful ghost, he would’ve gone to haunt Enbarr instead of bumming around rural villages. The exclamations that burst from all sides chased Ashe over to the lonely corner table where the young woman hid behind her wall of empty mugs.

“Excuse me,” Ashe started. The woman turned tired eyes on him, unfocused, then looked back to the window. It was so coated with haze that she may as well have been looking at a white wall. Ashe continued, “Sorry, just… it’s noisy over there. Do you mind if I sit with you?” Bloodshot eyes traced over every curve of his face. Slowly, without returning his smile, she nodded.

“Thank you!” he said. And - he hadn’t thought this far. He had nothing but honestly to fall back on. “I heard that you lost someone important to you. I’m… well, I’m sorry, even though I know it won’t change anything.” He reached for the untouched jug of water on the table and filled one of the mugs, nudging it towards her. Maybe it would at least help the hangover that would inevitably come for her later. “Did you go to Dorgdone to visit him?”

“Yeah. But I was too late.” Her voice was a dry rasp. “He and his ma were there. Out in the garden, lying in the lettuce patch. I snuck food for him, y’know, like always.” She snorted a single peal of laughter. “He always loved braised offal, y’know? So gross, but I brought it for him, all the way across the ridge. And he didn’t even eat it.” She rambled, eyes rimmed with wet red even as her mouth pulled into a strained smile. “The jerk. He didn’t even eat it.”

She took a swig of the water, looked at it blankly, scrunched her nose, and drank more. When she set down the mug, he refilled it with more water. He didn’t have a lot of experience dealing with this type of drunk, but it seemed she just wanted someone to listen without asking too many questions. He stayed quiet and waited for her to continue on her own time.

“I made sure he got buried right next to his ma. There was so many dead, I didn’t want them to get split up.”

“It’s good they’ll be together,” Ashe said. She nodded, brazen.

“Yeah. The way the others got buried, it was no good. I made sure he was buried right.”

“Who buried the others?”

She shrugged, loose hair tumbling down her shoulders.

“Whoever lived.”

“So… some people survived?” Ashe asked.

“Some. I didn’t know much of anybody else there.” Her voice was sour. “Just my honey and his ma. Well. Not anymore.” She shoved the half-full mug of water away, drops splattering across the table.

“Do you… know how he…?” Ashe asked, not wanting to snap the brittle thread of conversation. He settled on, “Do you know why he was lying down?”

“There was, on his chest…” The woman stuttered, making a wild slashing motion down and across her torso. Right where Ashe had been injured, earlier that week. Only, whoever attacked her honey hadn’t given him a second chance with a recover spell.

Ashe didn’t often think about how easy it was to die, but the modesty of it made paper of his bones in that moment.

“I’m sorry,” Ashe said, because he couldn’t help it. Because he had enlisted knowing he could die and survived, and her lover had only been trying to survive and died. “Did you see the one who hurt him?”

“It was those damned red soldiers!” She spat into a mug. “Walking all over like they owned the place, starving out everyone that rightfully lived there, all winter long! And then, like it weren’t enough, they slashed everyone all to pieces! Innocent, everyday folk! The whole town, just torn apart!” The brittle thread snapped, and her red eyes spilled over. Trembling fists pounded at the table, ratting the line of glasses.

Ashe settled back in his chair, brows knitting. So it hadn’t been a beast that wiped out Dorgdone, but the Imperial soldiers that were occupying it? It was hard to make sense of her ramblings, but he had to try.

“So, the soldiers killed the villagers… then what happened to the soldiers?”

The woman’s lips pulled back over her teeth. It was too twisted to be called a smile.

“They got what they deserved.”

-

“She was absolutely sure there were survivors?”

“She was completely drunk, but she was pretty straightforward that at least some people survived and buried the ones who died. And that all the soldiers died.”

“Right. Well… I guess if anyone has actually seen this beast or savage ghost or whatever it is, it’d be those survivors. We still have a few hours before sunset, and Dorgdone isn’t far by air.” Yuri’s face took a sheen of green at the thought that he’d have to take to the sky again, but he bit back his complaints as the two mounted Kyphonia and crested over a craggy ridge. Spotting Dorgdone Town along the river wasn’t difficult, but they landed a ways inland to avoid detection by boats.

“Alright, let’s get to ghost-hunting,” Yuri declared as soon as they landed.

“Can you not call it that,” Ashe asked.

“Beast hunting doesn’t sound as exciting,” Yuri mused.

“We don’t know that it’s a beast, either,” Ashe said. “I mean… Lord Judith told us specifically to investigate the possibility that Dimitri survived, and some of those villagers thought it could be true…”

“Ah, we get to hunt a _princely_ ghost, then.”

“Does it - does it not bother you?” Ashe asked, more frustrated than he wanted to let on. “I know, you probably didn’t get to know his Highness very well, but… still, to think of him, trapped here, still suffering so much after he already lost his family and... his retainer, and his entire country. It’s-” Too much. Too sad. Maybe Ashe hadn’t known him fully, but Dimitri really had been a truly kind person. The kind who went out of his way to ask after Ashe’s favorite type of sweets, to personally help him learn the lance, to remember his birthday when Dimitri was so, so high above him. Maybe he had some fury he couldn’t keep inside, but it didn’t erase his kindness.

“I don’t believe in ghosts, and I don’t believe in fairy tales where princes survive their executions to reappear five years later and take revenge,” Yuri said. “Just don’t get your expectations up too high, yeah?”

Ashe didn’t look at him, and kept trudging on. The terrain near Dorgdone Town was sallow and muddy; the grey, half-frozen muck sucked at his boots with every step, and even the chill air reeked of rot. They’d seen a few small houses since landing, some still upright, but most no more than skeletons of wood sinking into the earth.

Soon, they found where the wind picked up its rot. Corpses, clad in Imperial armor. Winter had kept their skin an almost shining blue; frost coated their open mouths, but hadn’t kept the crows and rats away. Some had been piled up, but most had been left where they lay. Blood pooled black where their bodies met the muck. Ashe felt particularly sorry for one soldier who had put his armor on backwards - only to realize that his neck had been twisted so his face looked out over his back. Struggling to keep the meagre cider down, Ashe pulled his hood in front of his nose and took a breath. It wasn’t just the cold or the rot - the air was sagging with dread, every rasp of wind grating his mind like ghostly whispers.

Yuri crouched next to a small pile of corpses, eyeing them ponderously.

“Well - it’s hard to say, given how late we are to the party, but it looks like it _could_ be the work of a demonic beast,” he said. Sighing like he’d gotten a bad score on a test, he got to his feet. “Definitely doesn’t look like magic, so there’s one strike. The only thing that bothers me is, though they have all sorts of wounds, it looks like most of them were decapitated. Before or after they died. Never heard of a demonic beast that does that.”

“Can we not talk about this right here,” Ashe said.

“Oh? Well, what would you like to talk about? The weather is dreadful.”

“I just mean, these people all died horribly, and their bodies have just been left out like this… it’s disrespectful, to talk about them like that.”

“Ah, I see. Worried about their vengeful spirits rising up if we-”

“Just stop!” Ashe snapped. He hated how his voice broke, and he hated the slow, owlish blink Yuri gave in return. He was so unruffled by all of this, like walking through an upturned graveyard was just a stroll through a run-down market. How could he be so apart from all this death?

“Alright,” Yuri said, evenly. “It’ll be getting dark soon. If we hope to find any survivors before then, we’d better get moving.” And off he went. His white boots were utterly ruined by the blood-clogged mud, but his footsteps were sure and swift. For Ashe, every step was a hand reaching up from the earth to drag at his heels.

There was a line of bodies just outside the town proper. The soldiers had been dragged out, like the surviving villagers had just tossed them over the threshold of their home. Dorgdone was small enough that it was only a short walk to the town center. In what used to be the square, there were rows of objects neatly laid out. Some dolls, some bits of jewelry, well-knit gloves and scarves, fishing gear, even hand-carved statues of the goddess. Neatly lined up like schoolchildren waiting for their teacher to start the day. The ground beneath was bloated, bits of flesh and bones peeking up from their shallow burials.

“It looks like there really were survivors, but they didn’t stick around long enough to make proper graves,” Yuri said. Both he and Ashe hovered at the outskirts of the open square, unwilling to trample on the remains underneath.

“With the ground flooded like this, it must have been difficult to bury them at all,” Ashe said. “I’m sure they did what they could. But, where do you think they went? It doesn’t seem like anyone stayed here.”

“Hard to say… there are a few other settlements around here, too small to even be called villages. Maybe they fled to one of those.”

“Maybe,” Ashe said. “Do you know where these other settlements are?”

“Mm,” Yuri grunted. He was staring out at the square, eyes fixed on a certain grave-marker. It was a doll, hair of straw and cotton dress soaked through by mud and frost. It looked like something Ashe’s little sister would have treasured when she was a toddler.

“I guess coming here was a waste, then. Should we go?” Ashe asked, quiet. The doll’s hair stirred in a gust of wind, button eyes staring at them, friendly, from across the makeshift burial ground.

“Yeah. I guess we should. Doesn’t seem like anyone-” Yuri paused, eyes darting from the square into the buildings to the side. His fingertips brushed the back of Ashe’s hand, beckoning to follow as he stepped back into the charred remains of a house. Alertness cut through the fog of sadness, and Ashe huddled close as Yuri whispered, “We’ve got company.”

“Survivors?” Ashe whispered back.

“Not sure. Just caught them from the corner of my eye - to the left, by that ox-cart.”

Ashe peered out from behind a beam, finding the cart but no one beside it.

“It can’t be more Imperial soldiers?” He asked, voice catching. Yuri’s eyes narrowed, and it made his whole face, his whole presence, sharp with focus.

“It could be. Or, it could be our mysterious beast. Whoever it is, you give me cover from here, and I’ll go flush them out.” Yuri swept away, lightly treading on fallen beams and boxes to keep his feet from the squelching mud. Ashe’s stomach shrunk, not even having enough time to call for Yuri to wait - but, he had to trust him. Ashe readied an arrow, nestled inside the charred remains of the house, waiting for any trace of movement near the cart. He took a steadying breath, feeling the sharp reassurance of his bowstring through his glove. Its press was almost hot against where his fingers had numbed.

A shrill cry broke the air. A figure broke from the shadow of the cart, an easy shot - but Ashe held his arrow even as he should’ve let it fly. The figure was small, crying - a child!

Ashe dropped his stance, ready to rush out - but Yuri got there first. The child had been startled so badly that they fell, elbows deep in the mud, unable to struggle to their feet. Yuri stepped over them. Even his stature looked imposing compared to the frail, bird-like limbs that didn’t have the strength to pry themselves from the mud. He peered down at them, and Ashe leapt out, ready to rush over to stop Yuri from - from what? Surely he knew the child was no threat, surely he wouldn’t hurt them?

As Ashe rushed over, Yuri held out a hand to stop him. Ashe realized, stupidly, that Yuri hadn’t just been staring down at the child - he’d been talking to them. Their face was so wan and dirtied that Ashe couldn’t tell anything about them, but the pitch of their cries made them sound like a girl, maybe 7 or 8 years old. She was in hysterics, flailing what parts of her body weren’t trapped in sludge. Ashe wanted nothing more than to pick her up, tell her it was alright, get her somewhere safe and warm - but Yuri held him back with a look. Ashe might’ve ignored it and picked her up, if Yuri’s face wasn’t so pale with concern. He knelt down, his tunic soaking up the watery earth, and began speaking in a mellow tone.

“Hey, there. I’m sorry for scaring you, that was my fault. That was mean of me. It was a mistake, and I promise that I don’t want to hurt you.” As he spoke, the girl looked at him, still wide-eyed, but no longer wailing. Ashe stepped forward to help her up, but she noticed him for the first time and started screaming.

“No! No, stay away!”

Ashe backed up immediately, tucking his bow out of sight. The fear and distrust in such a young child’s voice was a cold stake through his chest. Yuri also shuffled back, his knees leaving tracks in the mud. She calmed down enough to stop screaming, but still couldn’t find the strength to pry herself up.

“That’s my friend. He won’t hurt you either,” Yuri said. His tone was calm, warm, but the girl looked between him and Ashe with no less doubt.

“I promise I won’t hurt you. And I’m sorry for scaring you, too.” Ashe said. The tone he used to take care of his younger siblings when they were scared and hungry resurfaced from years in the past. The girl was losing out in her struggle against the mud and her own stamina, and wore the face of a rabbit caught in a snare.

“Are you… are you soldiers?” She asked. “I didn’t do anything bad. I didn’t steal anything, I promise, I promise!”

“We aren’t soldiers,” Yuri said. “We came to find people who are still living here. Are you from Dorgdone?” The girl nodded, barely. “Is there anyone else here?” The girl didn’t respond, her silence speaking for her that if there were other survivors, she didn’t want them to know. After a pause, Yuri continued, “The mud here is really terrible, yeah? Can I help you get up?”

The girl squeezed her eyes closed, giving one last quivering attempt to pull her elbows from the mud, and then relented with a small nod. Yuri reached out like he were offering to pet a hissing cat.

“I’m just going to grab your shoulders. Is that ok?” Yuri’s voice was so courteous that Ashe blanched. The girl nodded again, and Yuri gently took hold around her upper arms, pulling her up with him as he broke the earth’s grip around his knees and stood. As soon as she was steady on her own feet, he let her go.

The girl looked anxiously between the two of them again, shivering now in the cold wind. But she didn’t rush to get away from Yuri’s side.

“I have some bread, if you’d like it?” Ashe said, signaling to his rucksack without moving to take it off. The girl’s face lit up at the mention of bread, but just as quickly returned to its sallow doubt. Smiling, Ashe slowly reached into an outer compartment and produced a small wheat roll. Her pale eyes all but popped from her skull when he held it out to her, and she took it like it might burn to touch. She looked disbelievingly back to Yuri, who smiled and said,

“Go ahead and eat.”

Once she took a single bite, she devoured it like a dog, swallowing barely-chewed mouthfuls. “Hey, now, don’t rush and choke yourself,” Yuri chided, producing a water flask for her to drink from. She paused from the bread to gulp down the water. However, when she was about to stuff the rest of the bread in her mouth, she paused, and stared down at it like it were causing her a great deal of pain.

“You don’t like it?” Ashe asked, oddly guilty. The girl shook her head and stumbled over herself to thank him.

“It’s very, very tasty, mister! It’s just, my brother…” She trailed off, then looked down like she said something she shouldn’t have.

“Is your brother here? We have enough food for him, too,” Ashe said. She glanced up and him, then re-fixed her eyes on the bread, and finally gave a slow nod.

“He’s hiding,” she muttered.

“If you want to, you can take us to him, and we’ll make sure he gets food,” Yuri offered. The girl clutched the bread to her chest with spindly, grimy fingers. Ashe’s heart softened at the memory of what it was like to find kindness in a grown-up where he had only expected persecution. Apparently, the girl had come to the conclusion that she could trust them, and nodded again.

“By the way, my name is Ashe, and my friend is Yuri,” Ashe said. “What’s your name?”

“Meli,” she said. “My brother is Pannon.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Meli.” Ashe smiled, and looked down to where she was shin-deep in mud. “If you want, I can give you a piggy back while we walk to where Pannon is hiding?” Ashe did his best to mimic the way Yuri asked if he could help her stand up, earlier - he was a little ashamed that he had just thought to haul her up without asking first, but she’d responded well to Yuri’s courtesy. Meli gave him a shy nod, still shivering from cold and exhaustion.

Ashe slid his rucksack off, and Yuri took it without prompting. Meli hesitated for a long moment before climbing on his back, but he didn’t rush her. She only held around his neck with one arm, the other still clutching the half-eaten wheat roll. She told him where to go with one-word directions. As they walked, Yuri coaxed her into talking more about what had happened to the town.

The ‘red soldiers,’ as Meli called them, had come to Dorgdone that autumn. Ashe knew that House Charon wouldn’t have risked their precious neutrality to free a small town.

“They moved into some houses, so we all had to share the ones that were left,” Meli recalled. “They ate _so_ much food. We had to hide a bunch. But if you got caught with more food, the red soldiers would beat you up and take it.” When they got to the topic of the day of the massacre, Meli lost her fire. “Mama told me to take Pannon and hide where we keep our food. She said don’t come out until she comes to get us. But then she didn’t come. It was so quiet, and there was no more food, so I had to be bad and leave even though she said not to. And now nobody is here, and I couldn’t find any more food that was good to eat.”

A child’s resilience was an inspiring yet depressing thing. Meli didn’t cry as she recalled her tale, even when she got to describing how she’d been desperately scavenging to keep her brother alive for the past two weeks. Ashe’s heart grew heavier with every word Yuri coaxed out of the girl. There were no more corpses to contend with, but the murky grey wash of charred and rotted homes spoke enough of the agony that had been inflicted on this small, innocent village. All because it had a spot on the river that was useful in the war.

Meli asked to be let down when they neared a particular house, and she rushed inside. She shoved away a few planks of mildewy wood. In what looked like a normal stretch of floor, she uncovered a latch and hauled open a trapdoor. The wailing of an infant cut the stagnant air.

“Pannon, it’s safe, I’m here - look, look I have bread for you!” Meli pulled a messily-swaddled baby out of the crevice. She tore bits of the bread off, holding them up for the baby to eat. He swallowed them down so quickly that Ashe was worried he’d choke, and only when he’d finished did he stare at the two newcomers with glossy, wide eyes. Yuri and Ashe exchanged a glance, the latter pulling another bread roll and some jerky from his rucksack. Meli fed her brother first before digging into the jerky herself. Meanwhile, Ashe and Yuri conversed in low voices.

“What do we do? Take them back to the Monastery?” Ashe asked.

“I doubt Judith would be happy to see us back so soon. Besides, it’s a whole day’s flight away by now, and it’s already starting to get dark.”

“You mentioned you know of other settlements nearby?”

“…Yeah.” Yuri’s mouth flattened for a second as he said it, but he smoothed out his features to continue. “It’ll at least be a temporary safehouse. Besides, we still need to find the other survivors and get the full story of what happened here.”

“Right.” Ashe hadn’t forgotten their mission completely, but it was hard to prioritize anything over the safety of two starving and traumatized children. He turned back to the little ones, who were staring over at them with a mix of trepidation and anticipation. “If you come with us, we can at least get you somewhere clean and warm,” he said.

“Will there be more food?” Meli asked.

“There will be,” Yuri assured. Ashe couldn’t help but to believe him just as much. A tiny, shy smile bloomed on Meli’s face. It was something, at least, that made their mission worthwhile. Spies and rumors and beasts - Ashe knew the importance of such things only abstractly, but here, he and Yuri had at least done one real, good, thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time, on the adventures of Ashe and Yuri nominally being spies but mostly just hanging out:  
> -babysitting  
> -Oh No, There's Only One Bed


	3. Lone Moon - Zephyr in Winter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’d already bumbled through more barriers than Yuri had wanted to let down. His fear of flying, his tenderness towards children, his love for his mother - these hadn’t been gifts freely given, but awkward thefts due to poor circumstance. It made Ashe feel a little guilty, but also a little lucky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!! Thank you again to everyone that commented! You guys give me strength~ There will be two chapters posted this week, because I'm moving the updates to Fridays \o/
> 
> Slight content warning for some slut-shame-y language in this chapter

Oh goddess, he was going to squash the baby. There was going to be a baby-pancake ground into his back.

Landing a wyvern in the woods in the dark was hard. Landing a wyvern in the woods in the dark with three passengers who were all terrified of flying - one of them a _literal baby -_ was even harder.

“O merciful Seiros, in all your divine might, protect us from this _dumbass lizard that can’t fly straight-”_ Yuri’s muttered prayer escalated to a screech as Kyphinia’s legs scraped a treetop and she swung upwards again, the force of it nearly sending Ashe sliding back in the saddle to crush the two little ones sandwiched between himself and Yuri. The baby was wailing, the wind was whipping, Yuri was mixing profanities into prayers like it were a new form of speed-poetry.

Ashe tugged the reigns and steered Kyphonia towards the clearing by a pond. The ice crackled beneath her talons - with a hiss, she recoiled and stumbled from the water. They landed near the pond’s edge, at least. Being atop a disgruntled wyvern was not fun. Somehow, Yuri made it off the saddle before she even settled down, Meli in his clutches and Pannon in hers. They looked like rumpled, panicked nesting dolls.

“Don’t worry; you’re not a dumb lizard, and you can absolutely fly straight,” Ashe reassured Kyphonia once she settled into stillness. She huffed and turned away. Well, fine, it only made sense that even she would be annoyed with him. Really, it was true that it hadn’t been the most graceful landing, but they were all in one piece!

At least Pannon wasn’t crying. Really, it should have been _more_ worrying that a baby wouldn’t wail its way through a situation like this, but it was nice to be able to take a few quiet breaths.

“Do you know how far it is to the safehouse?” Ashe asked.

“Yeah, I recognize this pond. It’s not far.” Yuri realized he still had Meli in his arms and set her down in the snow.

“Where are we going?” Meli asked, hugging her brother closer to her.

“We’re going to a witch’s hut, and she’s going to eat you up,” Yuri deadpanned.

“ _Yuri!_ ”

“Kidding. She’s a nice lady. Now let’s get going before we turn into popsicles, yeah?”

Ashe hesitated, sulking under Kyphonia’s displeased glare as he tied her to a tree. At least because she’d broken through the ice with her foot, she’d have something to drink.

“You not coming?” Yuri asked, offering Meli a hand. She chose to keep both arms wrapped around her brother, but made to follow him.

“First I have to get Kyphonia some dinner,” Ashe said, hoisting up his bow.

“Now? It’s pitch black out,” Yuri said. The last struggle of the sun to crawl over the icy peaks was a red plume in the foggy dark. Honestly, the gnarled, bare trees looked like monsters ready to drag him into the dark woods forevermore, but - it was better than the corpse-ridden village from earlier!

“It’s easier to hunt alone. I can find my way back,” he reassured. Yuri didn’t look convinced, but Ashe turned to the kids. “You two were very brave. Just a little longer and you’ll be able to rest, ok?” Meli nodded resolutely, huddling closer to Yuri when Kyphonia stomped at the ice to make a bigger drinking hole.

“I can go ahead to drop the kids off and then meet you back here?” Yuri posited. It was almost hysterically domestic, given the actual situation, but Ashe couldn’t find it in himself to instantly agree. Ashe objected to the idea of leaving the kids alone or with strangers, but Yuri was adamant it wouldn’t be a problem. He tried pushing again about the exact identity of the person whose house they were planning to share, but Yuri batted the questions away with more vague jokes.

It was one thing to entrust his own life to Yuri, but two utterly helpless children? The sharp reminder of how little he actually knew of the other man or his ‘connections’ had Ashe chewing his lip. But what else could he do? Meli was trying to bite back her shivers, and Pannon’s little nose was so red with cold that hampering them from going inside would be crushing. Yuri’s frustration was mounting, and he snapped,

“Feel free to come with us first and _then_ head back out to feed the lizard.” Then he tromped off into the dark, Meli stranded between them.

_Even like this, he won’t ask me to just trust him._ And somehow, that was what made Ashe trust him all the more. If he couldn't trust Yuri with this, they'd never make it through any true life-or-death situations together.

“Go ahead with Yuri,” Ashe motioned to Meli. Her eyes widened. A pang of guilt over giving the child even _more_ to be afraid of had Ashe kneeling to her and reassuring, “It’s alright. You’ll be safe with him.”

“What about you?” Meli asked. Ashe chuckled.

“I’m safe with him, too.”

The girl shook her head, expression ponderous. She shifted Pannon to one arm and unwound the damp scarf from her neck.

“It’s cold. You’ll get sick.” And she made to bundle Ashe up with one of the last meager scraps she had.

“No, no, no! I’ll really be fine. I won’t be long at all!” He took the scarf in both his hands, carefully wrapping it back where it belonged. He tied it in a big bow, the kind his little sister liked. Still worried, Meli burrowed her cheeks into the scarf and nodded. Ashe smiled, turning her gently by the shoulders and sending her off to catch up with Yuri.

-

It could’ve been much worse. He could’ve waited all night for a deer to come by; he could’ve been surrounded by wolves, or set upon by a demonic beast. But as it was, simply having to lug a buck through the pitch-dark, root-tangled, freezing cold woods made him want to scream. Of course, he didn’t actually scream, just set one foot in front of the other, struggling to make out the markers he’d left for himself in the darkness.

Yuri was already waiting for him by the time he returned. Kyphonia all but lunged at the buck slung over his shoulders, and he was more than happy to drop it and scramble out of the way.

“Delectable manners,” Yuri observed through a frown as Kyphonia tore the entrails from the buck and threw her neck back to swallow, splattering blood across the icy pond.

“It’s not going to be much prettier when I finally get something to eat,” Ashe joked. Really, though, he felt so hungry it was like even his bones had gone hollow. Had it really only been a day since they set off from the Monastery?

“Here,” Yuri said, offering Ashe a small wrapped parcel. It was a roll, stuffed with diced winter squash and onion, and maybe the tastiest thing Ashe had ever smelled.

“Thank you,” he said with such earnestness that it verged on desperation. Yuri nodded, and started heading off through the woods. Ashe, embarrassed at walking and eating at once, gave himself one mouthful before trotting after him. “So, did Meli and Pannon settle in alright?”

“I told you it wouldn’t be a problem,” Yuri said, distracted. Sensing the tension, Ashe said,

“Sorry it took so long. I had to go far enough away that the animals wouldn’t be able to smell Kyphonia.”

“It’s fine,” Yuri said. Through the crawling silhouettes of bent trees, Ashe caught a far-off flicker of firelight. Then, somber, Yuri continued, “Where we’re staying, don’t ask too many questions.”

Taken aback, Ashe nibbled more on the roll. The call of an owl startled him, and he hastened his pace to stick right next to Yuri. As the cabin emerged from the forest, the firelight crawled along the craggy wood like a flood of spiders. This - really looked like a fairy tale. The sort of fairy tale that involved a witch living alone in the woods, who used a beautiful young man to lure in children to eat the flesh right from the bone-

“Oh goddess, what if they’ve already been cooked-”

“Hm? What’s that?” Yuri responded to Ashe’s panicked mutterings.

“Nothing!” He shot, red-faced at getting caught up in such a stupid train of thought. “Uhmmm, but, whose house is this?”

“Like I said, don’t ask.”

The cabin door swung open. A tall silhouette, fingers long and spindly, shrouded in animal skins, reached for them. It - it really was a witch!?

“Glad you made it back safely!” The witch said. “I was getting worried - oh, darling, you must be freezing! Come inside, come inside!” The witch extended one hand to him, the other waving them towards the fiery glow of the cabin. Yuri strode in, leaving Ashe to awkwardly shuffle in after him. The door was closed before he could turn around.

“Make yourself at home.” The woman swept her arm across the cabin like it were the stage at a theatre. The orange glow of a fireplace warmed the charming wooden table and chairs, chests of various sizes, and fur-lined bed.

“Where are Meli and Pannon?” Ashe asked, nervous.

“Afraid you missed them,” the woman said. “They’re already asleep.” She tilted her head towards the bed, but there was only a heap of blankets. One of the heaps, though, had a tiny face - and then two. The little ones were curled in the blankets so tightly that they looked like nesting dolls, cheeks rosy and faces calm. Ashe smiled and finally took a relieved breath.

“Thank you for taking caring of them. And thank you for letting us stay with you for the night. Oh, and thank you for the roll-”

“No need, no need,” the woman said, gently laying a hand on his shoulder to stop him. She - _very_ clearly - was not a horrifying, cannibalistic hag. Her light hair was streaked with grey, the slight wrinkles not detracting from her impish charm. She was pretty - a familiar sort of pretty? Merrily, she asked,“What’s your name, darling?”

“Ashe Ubert. And, um, you?”

The woman and Yuri exchanged a glance. She was already smiling, but it took on a mischievous tint.

“My name is Dahlia - but you may call me Madame Dahlia.” Her hand swept from his shoulder down into a flourished curtsey. Oh, no, had he not been formal enough? Awkwardly and far too late, Ashe stepped back and gave her a proper bow.

“I’m sorry Madame, I was too informal-”

Madame Dahlia burst into twinkling giggles, and - wait, Yuri was joining in, too? Ashe looked between them, brows pulling together and his face growing warmer. Had his bow been that bad?

“My, but you are sincere, aren’t you?” Madame Dahlia said.

“No need to tease him too much,” Yuri said. “He might combust.”

Ashe wanted to deny it, but his face really was burning up. Well, so were his fingers and toes, considering how long he’d been crouching out in the cold. Still - why would a Madame be living out in this tiny settlement? Yuri had said not to ask, but…

“There’s still a bit more rabbit stew if you’re feeling peckish. If you’d like, you can leave your coat and bags in the chest by the door.” Madame Dahlia had the air of a practiced host, and an elegance in her mannerisms that seemed odd for a settlement this rustic. As Ashe deposited his bag in the chest, several faces stared back at him - all portraits of the Madame, glowing with youth. Well, some of them were - most of the artists hadn’t had a very skilled hand. Yuri was standing stiffly beside the woman, not looking at her, but she kept sneaking amused glances at him. She turned her attention to Ashe to serve him some stew.

“Would you like some too, _Yuri?_ ” Her voice slid on his name like it were a song.

“Why, yes I would, _Madame,”_ he returned with the same musicality. There was something in the fondness of that moment, the teasing lilt that they tossed back-and-forth so readily-

“Yuri, this is your mother?” Ashe blurted.

Yuri’s eyes snapped to him. Ashe hadn’t even meant to say it, but Yuri’s reaction only confirmed that his wild guess had been true.

“I told you it would be obvious, silly!” Madame Dahlia pinched her son’s cheek, earning a massive eye-roll. “You get your good looks from me.”

Ashe couldn’t help but agree.

“Alas, twas you that laid the curse of devilish charm upon me.” Yuri sighed theatrically, as if conceding. Ashe only realized he was staring when Yuri looked up at him, something unnervingly sharp in his eye. He went back to looking down at his stew, chewing longer than he needed to. So - Yuri’s mother was living out in the middle of nowhere, and Yuri didn’t want him to know.

“Well, now that we’re acquainted, how about we get to know each other? Tell me, Ashe, how was it that you two met?” Madame Dahlia had a glint in her eye, fingers crossed languidly to prop up her chin.

“Hm!?” Ashe scrambled to swallow, setting his spoon down. “The first time we spoke was at the Officer’s Academy. We both transferred into the same Professor’s class - oh, but we actually met a few times before then…” Come to think of it, back then, Yuri hadn’t been on a horse. Count Rowe, Lord Gwendal, and the other knights had all been mounted on imposing steeds; the high walls of Arianrhod closed around them like a hulking titan, much more imposing than Castle Gaspard. The boy that Count Rowe introduced as his adopted son was made smaller, frailer, by the largeness of everything surrounding him. Ashe had been so excited to meet someone like him, his same age, almost - but for the rest of their stay, Yuri had disappeared, like he were never there. Such it had been, every time Ashe visited Rowe territory.

“Let’s not stroll too far down memory lane, yeah?” Yuri said. He twirled a spoon casually between his fingers, but his gaze was cold. Ashe wouldn’t interject, but Madame Dahlia did.

“Why not? Ashe looks like a very honest, trustworthy young man. The real hard-working type. The type that would make a good husb-”

“ _Mother._ ”

“What? Ahh, you’ve always tried to do _every_ thing yourself, but there’s no shame in wanting a caring, reliable man to-”

“Caring, _reliable_ men can kiss my ass-”

“Not at the dinner table, they can’t,” she finished with an aggrieved sigh in Ashe’s direction. He choked on his stew. It was clearly Yuri she was teasing, but _he was_ completely straight-faced, with a subdued grin, even, while Ashe was the one left sputtering. He really couldn’t imagine his own mother talking like this. Not that they’d had the chance to joke around about - adult matters, seeing as he was still a child when she had passed. But that just brought the question surging to mind - if Yuri still had living family, why had he been adopted by Count Rowe?

The two continued to cajole each other, but Ashe’s mind was stuck in a loop. Yuri’s mother was alive, and they clearly meshed very well. She seemed well taken care of out here, so Ashe imagined Yuri must be helping to provide for her. Could they have been separated when he was young? Maybe his father took him away somewhere, and he’d only reconnected with his mother later? There were a lot of possibilities. But - looking at the two of them, Madame Dahlia pretending to wipe food off her son’s cheeks as he pretended his smile was a frown… there was no way anyone would give this up willingly. Was there?

It might’ve just been that he was so exhausted, but the cabin was so cozy that his head was swimming. Two little ones curled up together on the bed, a crackling fire warming rabbit stew, the scent made all the warmer because of the flakes of snow frolicking outside the window.

His chin jerked up and he realized he’d been nodding off. Madame Dahlia glanced from over her shoulder, standing with two heavy blankets bulging in her arms.

“Seems like it’s bedtime,” she teased.

“Haha, seems so,” Ashe said, kneading his brow to catch his bearings before he propped himself up by the table.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to settle for sharing with the little ones.” She nodded to where Meli and Pannon lumped under the covers.

“But what about you?” Ashe asked, blearily.

“There’s some hay in the back room,” she said, nodding to an opening near the fireplace. Yuri walked out, dusting off his hands, and took the heavy blankets out of his mother's arms.

“No… No!” Ashe shot up, banging his thigh on the underside of the table. He winced, but at least he was awake. “Please, you take the bed. I can sleep on the hay.”

“You’re our guest,” she tried.

“As a guest, I’d feel better if you took the bed. Really, you’ve already been so hospitable-” The panic on his face must’ve gotten to her, because she caved in with a sigh.

“Well, if you insist. But you two will have to share.” She looked between Ashe and Yuri with an over-exaggerated waggle of her eyebrows. Yuri, unable to smack her with his armful of blanket, only rolled his eyes and headed off to the back room. “Good night to you, too, sweetie,” she called after him. Yuri grunted.

“Really, thank you again for - for everything, Madame,” Ashe said.

“No need for such thanks. We all have to help each other to make it through.” For a moment, her eyes were distant, sad. But she brightened up to bid him good-night, and he returned the sentiment with equal cheer.

Ashe was now awake enough to at least walk straight. In the back room, he was greeted by Yuri’s back, looking pensively down at the mound of hay. He’d already covered it with the emergency blankets from their supply bags.

“This really is quite the first date. First you see me without my makeup, then you meet my mother, and now we get to sleep together.” Yuri said it completely unenthusiastically, but he at least gave Ashe a bemused sort of half-smile. Ashe chuckled, but a trickle of worry crept down his ribcage. Ashe was used to sharing close-quarters with other soldiers, but it seemed Yuri found the situation more awkward. Not sure how else to make his companion more comfortable, he took the side closer to the wall, curling his arms and pressing them flat against the cold wood to leave as much space for Yuri as possible. Yuri tossed over one of the heavy blankets. The dulled scent of mint mingled with the musky smell of the hay; their emergency blankets were densely-woven but thin, so the uneven, dry bristles still poked into him uncomfortably.

“You don’t have to curl into a shrimp,” Yuri said with a low laugh. The hay shifted as he sat down, making Ashe partially roll onto his back. Yuri was settling into the hay like it were a luxurious lounge chair. He swept his hand over a blank expense of bedding between them, and said, “See? Plenty of room.” His expression, in the low light of the moon though a tiny window and the residual firelight spilling in behind him, still held a taut thread of anxiety.

For some reason, Ashe remembered the way Yuri had talked to Meli, how he hadn’t touched her until she'd given her permission first.

“I might move around in my sleep and brush up against you,” Ashe said with a note of apology. “I really can go sleep on the floor if-”

“I’d rather you not freeze to death,” Yuri said curtly. “Really. As long as you don’t punch me in the face, we’re good.”

Ashe knew he had said the wrong thing, but couldn’t figure out exactly what it was. His laugh came out thin and nervous.

“Well, ok,” he said. Yuri tugged the mint-scented blanket over both of them, then added another blanket of thick but rough-spun wool on top. This one smelled even more strongly of perfume. Ashe stiffly stayed on his side, not curled as tightly as before, but still with his arms and legs brushing against the coarse wall. His eyes traced along the patterns in the wood, like coils of ink on dark paper in the dim light. Closing his eyes, he tried to let the tension out of his body, but every time he relaxed the contour of the hay had him rolling onto his back. After the third time he’d accidentally lolled into Yuri’s shoulder and pulled away, he heard Yuri mutter,

“Didn’t you say you don’t heed people’s reputations?” He sounded - hurt.

Turning the words over in his mind, Ashe couldn’t make sense of them - he really just didn’t want to be a bother if Yuri didn’t like being touched.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you mean,” he said, helplessly. He tried to shift so he could look at Yuri while still maintaining a distance, his neck twisting a little painfully.

“I said, didn’t you say you don’t listen to bad rumors about people? It’s not like I’m going to molest you or something.” Yuri was staring dead at the ceiling, only his face peeking out from the bundled blankets. Ashe thought it was cute, before his brain caught up to Yuri’s words - what? Molest him? Is that really what he’d said?

“Sorry, I - I’m confused? I didn’t think you were going to… do anything, to me,” Ashe said, falling fully onto his back. That made the length of his arm press against Yuri’s, so he shifted his arm onto his own chest, so that only their shoulders touched. “I just - I thought, maybe you aren’t used to sharing a sleeping mat…” He trailed off, a little spark of recognition going off in his head. He really didn’t like listening to gossip, but that didn’t mean he could cork up his ears entirely. Threads of whispered and not-so-whispered voices started to weave together in his mind - _he’ll do anything to get ahead, whether it’s slice a man’s throat or slip into his bed - he didn’t get the recommendation to attend the Officer’s Academy based on his merits, I can tell that much - it’s no wonder all those scoundrels in Abyss are willing to follow him really; all he has to do is open his legs-_

Ashe sat up, the quick motion alarming Yuri into staring up at him, eyes wide. “Sorry, I really just thought you didn’t like being touched at all! It had nothing to do with the stuff people said - wait, did you look so anxious because you were worried that _I_ was worried?” His words tumbled out, a little loud at first then quieting as he remembered kids were sleeping in the next room.

“Anxious? I didn’t look anxious,” Yuri said, brows knitting. Then he noticed his brows knitting, and smoothed them out into a humorously blank expression.

“You really did,” Ashe said, unable to help a tinge of teasing.

“Did not,” Yuri said, utterly dead pan. The two considered each other for a moment, Ashe propped up on his elbows and Yuri nestled in the blankets like a swaddled kitten. The firelight had almost died down, leaving only a faint halo of warmth on one side of Yuri’s moonlit face. He blinked once, twice, long lashes softening what would otherwise be a chilling expression. Then, one side of his mouth twitched into a smile, and both he and Ashe dissolved into a bout of suppressed laughter.

“Well, glad to have cleared up _that_ misunderstanding,” Yuri mumbled as Ashe laid back down on their prickly makeshift mattress.

“Tell me about it,” Ashe agreed, pulling both blankets up to his chin. It felt much easier to relax now, though he still kept his arms crossed over his stomach. A little hesitantly, Yuri continued,

“You’re not exactly wrong that I don’t like being touched, but it’s not that big a deal. Sharing a sleeping mat is fine. I know you’re - safe.”

Ashe wanted to ask what he meant, but Yuri rolled over on his side, facing away. It wasn’t explicitly telling him to change the subject, but they’d only just started getting along, and he didn’t want to push his luck. He tried to shift around to find a position where straw wouldn’t be poking anywhere especially uncomfortable, and ended up facing the wall again, his back lightly pressing against Yuri’s. Really, it was so light that they only brushed together if both of them breathed in at the same time.

“This feels kind of nostalgic,” Ashe whispered, not thinking about why. The musky sharpness of the hay, the rough weave of the blankets - he’d have been lucky to have that much, back when he and his siblings were on the streets. He used to cling onto both of them in his sleep, trying to feed them what little warmth his thin body could manage. There was really nothing here to remind him of his past, but he felt it regardless.

“For me, too,” Yuri said. And oh - that was why he’d said it. To hear that someone felt the same.

All the talk of Yuri’s reputation, regardless of what was true and what wasn’t, had stirred up Ashe’s curiosity. He wanted to know more about Yuri. Not through hearsay and rumors, but through the man's own words.

He’d already bumbled through more barriers than Yuri had wanted to let down. His fear of flying, his tenderness towards children, his love for his mother - these hadn’t been gifts freely given, but awkward thefts due to poor circumstance. It made Ashe feel a little guilty, but also a little lucky.

The more he dwelled on it, the more odd he found it that Yuri had been trying to hide the fact that Madame Dahlia was his mother. The two obviously loved each other. Was it that he thought Ashe would judge her? He couldn’t picture Yuri caring too much about his opinion - but just to be sure, he whispered,

“Your mother is such a wonderful person. Even if it’s only because things didn’t go to plan, I’m glad you two got to see each other.” He almost added, _and I’m glad I got to meet her,_ but that felt like too much.

“Mm,” Yuri hummed. Ashe could feel the tremble of it.

“Do you… get to see each other often?”

“Not really.”

“Why don’t you invite her to come live in the Monastary? Then you could be together,.”

“Truly spoken like someone who doesn’t have a lot of enemies,” Yuri said. Ashe’s mind conjured the image of him smiling, faintly, half-sad, in the dim moonlight. “But, you might be making some, during your exciting new career in espionage.”

“You’re trying to protect her,” Ashe muttered. Yuri didn’t reply. What must it be like, to have people wishing ill of you to the point that they’d go through your mother to harm you?

“I miss my little brother and sister,” Ashe found himself saying. The thought of them, here, in someone else’s home, was more an ache than a comfort. It’s not like he could ever stop thinking of them, not really - but it had been a long, long time since he’d talked about them with anyone else. It made the chasm of their separation feel all the more wide. He shifted into the press of solid warmth along his spine, reminding himself that even in this remote cabin surrounded by cold and chaos and war, there was still someone at his back. He never thought it would be Yuri, but - if life was a path so twisting and unexpected, why not accept the good turns? He confided, “They still live in Gaspard territory. The last I heard, they left the castle and started living in a nearby church… to help out, with all the injured that come in from the war. I’m proud of them. They’re old enough to make their way without me, now.”

“You’re way too open with all this,” Yuri said. Exasperated. The sting of it had Ashe pulling away. He accidentally took some of the blanket with him. He mumbled an apology, loosening his grip so Yuri could cover himself without their backs touching. “I was serious when I said you might be making some enemies, friend. Best not make a habit of pointing out all your weak points.”

“I was just trying to… never mind.” Was Ashe being petulant? Sure, Yuri had just called him ‘friend,’ but he said it the way shop owners did when they wanted you to pay too much. It seemed like every time he got closer, felt like his feet were on solid ground, it’d give way to mud beneath his heels and he was left stumbling, never sure of where they stood with each other. No matter how much he wanted to know, to be known, none of it mattered if the other person didn't feel the same.

The night suddenly got a lot colder.

-

“I saw the man myself - if you could even call him a man.” The woman’s eyes were sunken, but her gaze still pierced through them with a chill that cut through the warmth of Madame Dahlia’s cabin.

“Can you tell us what he looked like?” Yuri pressed.

“Big. Ragged. Like a rabid wolf,” she muttered. Or like a boar, Ashe hoped.“He was missing an eye.”

“Missing an eye?” Ashe asked in worry. He was hoping beyond all odds that the ‘beast’ really was his lost Prince, but… it felt wrong, to wish that Dimitri had been so battered, even if it meant he kept his life.

“Not that it held him back at all. Must’ve been fifty soldiers he killed, all in a flash.” The woman took a shaking sip of tea. Madame Dahlia had taken Meli and Pannon out for a walk, and Ashe was glad for it. Meli had jumped for joy and run into the woman’s arms when Madame Dahlia brought her to the cabin that morning. She was one of her neighbors in Dorgdone. She fled to this remote cluster of homes after the massacre, and had assumed Meli and Pannon dead, though she didn’t find them among the bodies she helped to bury. Yuri didn’t prod much further along that line of inquiry until he turned the topic to precisely what happened that day.

“Right. What was he wearing? What was his height, hair color?”

“His clothes were all dark, and he had a great fur cloak. Couldn’t see much else ‘sides that.”

“Did you see what sort of weapon he wielded?” Ashe asked, insides a knot of dread and hope.

“Some sort ‘a polearm.”

A polearm. A lance. Just like Dimitri…

“And this man - on his own - was the one responsible for everyone who died that day?” Yuri pressed. The woman knotted her hands together over the table, and pressed her forehead into them.

“No. Those soldiers were slaughtering anyone in sight. Most of us tried to run, but that man - he fought back. Must of been stabbed half a dozen times and shot twice as many, but he kept going. Was only thanks to him I got away.”

The three let the silence simmer over the gently crackling fire. Ashe’s head was spinning - nothing so far had disproven that their ‘beast’ could be Dimitri, but he did not want to imagine his friend as being part of that brutality and chaos. Stabbed and shot that many times? Even if he escaped, could he have survived? Besides, the pieces of the whole event still weren’t adding up.

Gently, Ashe asked, “Why was it that the soldiers started attacking everyone?”

The woman shrugged helplessly. Ashe didn’t press further, and gave a look that told Yuri to hold back when he was about to interject. The woman smiled in place of crying, and rambled,

“I don’t know. Those soldiers never cared when we would die of hunger from them taking our food, or lost our livelihoods when they took over the river, but they never just killed nobody outright. That day… the dam broke, and I don’t know who did it, but everywhere was water and chaos, and then the yelling started, and… I don’t know if it was the soldiers that started killing first, or if it was that man that started killing the soldiers first. They… the soldiers were yelling, calling us treacherous. It’s all so jumbled, but I think I remember one soldier yelling that if we ‘turned him over,’ they’d stop hurting us, but then that man put a blade through him and… it was all just chaos.”

“Thank you for telling us,” Ashe whispered. The woman gulped, nodded, held the warm teacup in both hands and stared down. Yuri looked out the window, thumb absently flicking his lower lip. Ashe turned one phrase around and around in his mind - _turn him over._ It sounded to Ashe that someone in Dorgdone had been harboring this beastly man, and when the Imperial soldiers caught wind of it, they were willing to kill anyone in their path to get to him. Only the man had been much stronger than they thought, and had wiped them all out instead.

A knock on the door startled Ashe out of his winding thoughts. Madame Dahlia peeked in.

“Our tour is all wrapped up! How are we doing here?”

“All wrapped up,” Yuri said, nodding in thanks to the woman. Madame Dahlia opened the door fully, tutting at Meli to take her brother back inside. The girl trotted to Ashe’s side at the table. Pannon didn’t fuss at being passed over to his neighbor.

“We’ve got to get going, now,” Yuri said. Meli rounded on him.

“So soon?”

“So soon,” Yuri conceded. After a half-beat of consideration, he gave a quick tussle to her hair. Only, she reached up to hold his hand to her head.

“It’s too soon. I don’t want to say goodbye.” The girl had survived a massacre, near-starvation, and a perilous wyvern flight without a single complaint, and _now_ she was pouting.

“Don’t give me that face,” Yuri laughed. “There’s other people out there I gotta save, yeah?”

“Well… if you’re _really_ going to go save more people…” She relinquished Yuri’s hand, but the pout remained.

“I really am. I promise.”

“…Ok then,” Meli conceded. She asked Ashe, “You, too?”

“Me too,” he grinned. Only, he couldn’t bring himself to say _I promise._

He and Yuri bid farewell to the cozy cabin and all its inhabitants. As they packed and headed out into the freezing morning fog, Ashe turned back to Madame Dahlia one last time.

“Thank you again for having us. And for helping to take care of Meli and Pannon. I know having little ones around isn’t easy…”

She tittered, shaking her head emphatically.

“Oh, it’s my pleasure! There’s not many of us out here, but we all help each other out. Not many places have been left this untouched by the war.” Her face took on a glossy distance as she looked after Yuri’s retreating back. “That boy of mine really knows how to plan ahead.”

“He does,” Ashe acknowledged.

“He wouldn’t tell me what you two are up two, so far out here. But it can’t be anything safe, I’m guessing?”

“No. No, it isn’t.” Ashe admitted.

“And I suppose you can’t tell me, either?”

“I can’t. I’m sorry.” Ashe bowed his head, staring at her fur-lined boots. She hummed, and placed a palm on his shoulder.

“It’s not the first time he’s left home without telling me where he’s going. But it is the first time he’s left with someone at his side. You boys take care of each other, you hear me?” The squeeze at his shoulder was as reassuring as her smile.

“Of course!” It was easy to match her cheer. Everything he was tasked with felt so out-of-reach, but protecting one person? That, he could devote himself to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On the next episode!!  
> -Ashe's geeky knowledge of knights' tales  
> -They actually?? Do some spy stuff??


	4. Lone Moon - In Snow Swept Streets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We can help?” Ashe asked. He hoped Yuri meant it, and not just as one of those things that they had to try to believe, to keep going. Yuri nodded, jaw set.  
> “Not quickly. And not without grabbing more power than society says we deserve. But we can.” His eyes burned. Sparks caught at the edges of Ashe’s heart. In the glare of that light, it was impossible to disbelieve even that audacious a resolve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woooo first Friday update!! Barely made it hah, this chapter was more of a handful than I anticipated. Thanks again to everyone who commented and left kudos - really grateful you guys have stuck with me this far! I hope everyone is hanging in there through this crazy winter. 
> 
> CW for this chapter:  
> -inhumane treatment of refugees  
> -depictions of homelessness and poverty, including children in poverty  
> -a brief bit of racist language (towards the people of Duscur, and Dedue specifically)

“So we meet again, o nemesis.” Yuri stared straight ahead, eyes blazing with enough ferocity to mask the fitful pulse of his fear.

“Don’t call her that,” Ashe sighed, pulling out a piece of jerky from his pack. “Here, try giving her a treat! Then maybe you won’t be as sca - ared!” He leapt back with a yelp as Kyphonia moved to take the jerky, knocking into a tree and sending branchfuls of snow plummeting onto Ashe’s head. He shook his hair out like a forlorn puppy that’d been sprayed with water.

“I think I’ll pass,” Yuri said, completely dry, because of course he had dodged out of the way. Of course.

“You’ll have to get along with her eventually…” Ashe tried to preserve his dignity, but it didn’t really work with the stupid dance he had to go to stop melting ice from sneaking down his back.

“No, I’ll have to get _used_ to her eventually. Big difference. Anyway, let’s just get this over with. Not sure we could survive another crash landing in the dark, and we have a lot of ground to cover.”

Ashe agreed, not looking forward to the long day of flying ahead now that he was half an ice block already.

Yuri only lasted about fifteen minutes in the air before he was shivering against Ashe’s back. He didn’t put on the same prideful act as yesterday, and looped his arms firmly around Ashe’s stomach. The layer of wet fabric clinging against his spine was uncomfortable, but it far beat out having the icy winds ripping across his back, so Ashe was secretly a little grateful for his companion’s fear of flying.

The grey mountains were like fissures in an icy lake, cracking across the landscape and pulling them even northwards. As they passed from Charon into Blaiddyd, he would need to be on the lookout for encampments to avoid. They only stopped once that day, near a remote mountain lake, to let Kyphonia rest as they wordlessly chewed on hard tack. Then it was back to the skies. Dusk rushed around them like flames, though the orange glow only brought deeper cold. When Fhirdiad came into view, it was as a haze of light through crawling mists. Huddled between two mountains like a shivering child between its parents, the capitol city Ashe had always wanted to see was dull in the encroaching night.

The connection Judith instructed them to meet lived a few miles southwest of the city. The single lantern on the outskirts would have been impossible to notice among the others in the small village, if they hadn’t been watching for the exact sequence at which it flickered. Here, the land was more languid hill than rocky crag, all but barren, and made for an easy landing for a wyvern. Ashe waited with Kyphonia in the wilds, while Yuri crept closer to the village, controlling the fire spell above his palm so that it flickered with a pattern that matched the lantern they’d spotted from the air. After about half an hour, Yuri stepped back into view, followed by two people dressed in the drab woolen cloaks that were so common among Faerghus peasantry.

Ashe handed Kyphonia’s reins to a middle-aged woman, who smiled at the wyvern with a fondness that set Ashe at ease, and reassured him that she would take good care of his mount while they were inside Fhirdiad. As she lead Kyphonia to a sheltered cavern, Ashe and Yuri followed her husband to their home on the outskirts of this village. There were many settlements scattered south of Fhirdiad, relying on the capitol’s merchants and craftsmen to trade with their wool and meat. The cloaked man eyed them with sullen doubt, and spoke only to direct them into the barn.

Several sheep and chickens greeted them with quizzical clucks when they slid the barn doors closed behind them. The stalls were so well-kept that there was hardly any smell at all. Ashe and Yuri collapsed easily into the dusty rafters, exhausted to the point of feebleness.

“We should write up a report,” Yuri sighed from where he lay on a loose pile of hay.

“I guess we have to…” Ashe rolled off his own pile of hay, fishing in his bag for a journal. Judith had given them each a jar of ink and a journal. “So, what do we say? That it’s possible the one killing all the Imperial soldiers is His Highness?”

Yuri frowned. He perched beside Ashe, igniting a fire spell in his hand to illuminate the open journal.

“That’s drawing too many conclusions.”

“I just said that it’s _possible,”_ Ashe pointed out. “It’s not that far-fetched a conclusion.”

“It’s still _too_ far-fetched.”

“Nothing we found out disproves it.”

“Coincidental similarities aren’t evidence. You want to believe he’s alive, but we shouldn’t let that influence our report.”

“Is it wrong to want him to be alive?” Ashe asked. Frustration was building in his chest, lodged like a rock at the base of his throat.

“Not _wrong._ But not helpful.”

“Would it be more helpful if he’s dead?”

“Look. I just don’t want you to get your hopes up too high. It’ll hurt when they crash down.”

“And what good would come from keeping my hopes low?” Ashe wasn’t sure how his annoyance had built so quickly.

Yuri’s eyes left the journal to meet Ashe’s. Ashe hoped he looked determined, but Yuri’s expression made him think he must just look childish and stupid. He didn’t shrink away, though. Yuri’s jaw was set with a stubbornness that Ashe matched. The firelight from below made Yuri’s features sharp as he said,

“Just think - we infiltrate the castle and find out that the Prince’s execution was real, beyond a shadow of a doubt. We find out the one killing Imperial soldiers is just some random madman. Then what would be the point of letting yourself get worked up like this? How would you feel?”

“Of course I’d be disappointed. But being afraid of getting hurt isn’t a good reason to avoid hoping.”

A long, high _creak_ crept up to the rafters. Ashe peered down to see the woman who had taken Kyphonia. She nodded up to them, arms hidden beneath her cloak.

“I’ll finish the report,” Yuri said, and snatched up Ashe’s notebook. Ashe felt so stupid. Yuri wouldn’t even trust him with something as simple as this? They were supposed to break into the castle and survive together for over a week?

Was he really so unforgivably naive, just to hope for one good thing?

Ashe stood, silent, stomach hot like it was struggling to digest the rock-cold embarrassment. He climbed down from the rafters, nodding at the woman without speaking, lest he say something else that gave away just how unsuited he was to be here. The woman handed him a book. The cover was faded, but a beat of warmth lit up in Ashe’s heart at just one glance. _Loog and the Maiden of Wind._

“Thank you,” Ashe said, a little breathless, before he saw the woman’s surprised face and quickly added, “Just, I, I really like this book…”

“Well, you’re welcome?” She laughed bemusedly, once, and handed him the other bundle tucked under her arm. “Hope you’ll fancy your uniform just as much.” Ashe laid the folded servants’ clothes over one arm, so he could trace his fingers over the book’s cover again. It was the same art as the edition in the Monastery library - slightly different from the version he’d seen in Lonato’s manor, or in shop windows throughout Faerghus.

“Do you come from Adrestia?” Ashe asked. The woman blinked, a nervous smile settling over her face.

“Why do you think so?”

“This edition of the cover… oh. Oh! I’m not accusing you of anything, it really is just the cover- see? The design on the armor here is a little different. I’ve never seen this one in print within Faerghus.”

“Really?” The woman’s brow crinkled, frustrated, seemingly at herself. “Good to know.” It seemed to trouble her, though she schooled her features back into a pleasantly bland smile within seconds. “Much as I wish we could sit around and chat, the less we know about each other, the safer we’ll all be,” she said, not harshly.

“She gets it,” Yuri said, dropping down from the rafters. He gestured for Ashe to hand over the book, and he reluctantly complied. Yuri flipped through the pages, brows not quite knotting. A couple loose papers fell out and Ashe caught them, finding them to be letters of recommendation for two new cooks for the castle kitchens.

“I’ll need a minute to encode our report,” Yuri sighed.

“I’ll wait. The warp spell is ready to go.” The woman turned to pet some of the sheep while Yuri leaned against a crate to transcribe his message into code. Ashe leaned over his shoulder, to see only a few simple words written down: _one man, lance, target soldiers only._ Would Judith really be able to understand just from that? He then turned to _Loog_ to apply the cipher. He flipped through with irritation, having trouble finding the exact words he wanted.

“Um- on the first paragraph of chapter three, there should be ‘ _one man_ ,’” Ashe offered. Yuri quirked a brow and scanned that page, finding the two words as promised. He jotted the page and word numbers on a blank page, and began searching for a _lance._

“Oh, there should be one around… here!” Ashe pointed to the page, and sure enough, a _lance_ was clearly printed just beneath his finger.

“Huh… you weren’t kidding when you said you like this book,” Yuri said. Ashe flushed.

“It just mentions lances a lot,” He mumbled.

“Oh?” Yuri propped one corner of his mouth up. “I’ll have to re-read it with fresh eyes. Well, what about ‘ _target?’”_

That one was trickier. But there was the chapter with the archery contest… Ashe scanned a few pages and quickly found the target, so to speak. Jotting down the page and word number, Yuri observed, “Looks like I should leave this to you, after all.”

Still red to the ears, Ashe hunted down _soldiers_ and _only,_ and pointed them out for Yuri to transcribe. At least Yuri went light on the teasing at his photographic memory of his beloved _Loog._

Yuri neatly tore out the page and folded the encoded message neatly and handed it to the woman. She walked into the sheep pen, brushing past the animals that tried to cozy up to her, and pushed aside a pail and bale of hay, then used some sort of incantation to unseal a board on the floor. She beckoned Yuri to her side, and Ashe followed, curiosity winning out over glumness. He’d really given everything he had to his magic studies while at the Officer’s Academy, but his ‘everything’ made his teachers tell him he should focus on other areas of study. He doubted he could still produce a simple fireball, let alone understand the complex sigils engraved in the small chamber beneath the floorboard.

Yuri kneeled down beside the woman, placing the folded paper inside and tracing lightly over the sigils. He and the woman talked for a while, using terminology Ashe didn’t understand. Ashe mostly knew Yuri to be adept with a sword and bow, but he obviously knew enough about warp magic to keep up with the woman’s explanations. Seems he’d learned a lot, over the past five years. What he could gather was that Yuri could warp simple objects like paper to this hidden chamber, from the relatively short distance between this barn and the castle. Then, the woman could use a far more powerful spell to transport their reports all the way back to the Monastery.

When they re-sealed the board, a flash of purple light surged through the thin cracks and vanished. The sheep didn’t even flinch.

They bade the woman a good night. In her absence, Yuri and Ashe fell into a stiff silence not remedied by the occasional cluck of a chicken. In lieu of words, Ashe passed Yuri his servant’s uniform. He scanned the letter of recommendation and shook his head wordlessly.

Ashe wanted to ask Yuri - Are you nervous? What will happen to us if we get caught? How do you feel about being forced into this? But… he remembered the turned back, _you’re way too open with all this._ He didn’t want to come across any softer, any more naiive, than he already did. They were going into a dangerous situation tomorrow, where they only had each other to rely on, to trust - he wanted to be relied on, trusted. To be reliable, trustworthy.

“I really do think she’s originally from Adrestia,” Yuri said, ponderously. “They’re leagues ahead of either the Kingdom or Alliance in magical research. Especially warp spells. Wonder how Judith got a talented mage like her to join our side.” He gazed at the closed barn door, then at the sealed warp chamber.

“There could be all kinds of reasons,” Ashe said. “Maybe she just thought it was the right thing to do.”

“Hmm,” Yuri said, turning away, and Ashe knew he’d given another wrong answer.

The two hardly exchanged another word that night. The hay here was much harsher than it had been in Madame Dahlia’s cabin, the updraft coming from beneath the rafters turning a slight chill into a frigid stream. The animals settled into sleep, leaving an eerie stillness broken by occasional gusts of wind wailing through creaking walls. As far apart as they were, now, it was easy to forget that Yuri was there at all.

Tomorrow, he would see Fhirdiad for the first time.

-

The capitol city was a wasteland of greying snow. Ashe clutched his hood closer around his neck, swallowing around air cold with ash and decay, finding little warmth in the throng of bodies around him. As soon as they’d approached the city gates, soldiers had tunneled them along to a pen, already packed with refugees from villages that had been destroyed in the war. Snow dropped in flurries, turning the mass of people into a roiling, pimpled white landscape. Only a small section of the pen was covered by flimsy straw roofing, where the youngest children and most feeble elderly were huddling like frightened lambs.

“The castle should be due north of here,” Yuri grumbled. “When it looks like the soldiers are preoccupied, we can slip through that alley.” Ashe nodded, terse. The fence around the pen was more suggestion than enforcement, but several armored soldiers watched glumly from the perimeter.

“No! No, I can still take care of her!” A woman’s cry rang from the other end of the pen. The crowd was too thick to see what was happening. Many turned to face the noise, but even more lowered their heads and shuffled away as much as they could. The same woman’s voice pleaded, “Please, she only needs some hot water, a thicker blanket… I don’t even need a doctor, just please let me take her somewhere inside, if only she was out of the snow, she’d get better!”

“That’s why we need to take her away. Do you want to get everyone here sick?”

“Then let me come with you!”

Ashe was jostled with the crowd. Most of the refugees coagulated at the edges of the pen, leaving a thin enough crowd that Ashe could catch glimpses of the action through gaps in the bodies. Two sets of arms were gripping a bundle. One, thin and gloveless, fingers white with blackened tips; the other, glad in blue gambeson and silver gauntlets. The crying woman refused to let go, frostbitten fingers clinging to the lump of fabric, and from the fabric fell a withered, pearly hand.

“For the last time, we’ll take her inside and- and she’ll be fine,” the grizzled soldier gritted out.

“No, no, I won’t leave her!”

“Look, do you want your mother to die, or not?”

“Let the poor girl go,” a third voice cut in. The hunched figure of an elderly man stepped out towards the soldier. “So many times, you’ve told us you’ll take one of us away for treatment, and not a single one has come back. You should at least let her die with her loved ones.” The man sounded tired, voice trembling as much with age as with fury.

“Our orders are to remove any sick people-”

“We don’t care about your orders! We’ve been here for three weeks! You’re treating us like animals!” An angry shout come from somewhere within the crowd, followed by a stretch of silence. The soldiers on the perimeter were ashen-faced. Whether by nervousness or shame, they shuffled on their feet, not looking out over the crowd. The grizzled soldier released the sick woman, stood, eyes flitting over the sea of sallow faces. Mouth set thinly, he looked to the perimeter guards and barked,

“You, come here. We need to take this woman away.”

Ashe was jostled again as the tide of the crowd flowed two ways - most people scrambled to get away from the scene, but some pushed forward. Ashe was squished up against Yuri, hip digging into the rickety fence.

“We need to go now.” Yuri’s whisper was barely audible above the rising rumbling of murmurs and yelps.

“But what about-” Ashe asked, trying to see over the turbid waves of people.

“We have to _go,”_ Yuri reiterated, catching Ashe’s wrist in a strong grip. Helplessly, Ashe looked into his eyes. Snow had clustered on his hood and long lashes, turning him into a specter. With a furtive glance around, Yuri hopped over the fence and darted into the alley. Shouting, frightened voices flared up behind him, and Ashe wanted to stay, he wanted to _help -_

But he was useless. There was nothing he could do but run.

He followed Yuri’s footprints down the alley, finding him waiting around a corner. He instantly walked away, leaving Ashe to give chase. His heart pounded, stirring up the little food they’d eaten that morning into a sickly whirl. The shouting and wailing rung in his ears even after they’d fled several streets away.

“Three weeks…” Ashe muttered. “I thought that was just a temporary waiting area… shouldn’t they have shelters for refugees?” It made so sense to beseech Yuri on this, but if he didn’t get the thought out, it would eat him away.

“Hm. That would take money away from war funds,” Yuri observed gloomily.

“What’s the point in fighting a war if all the people back home are dying?”

“Oh, plenty of people aren’t dying. Just the poor ones.” Yuri’s eyes were set ruthlessly ahead. Ashe knew that. Of course Ashe knew that, he had _lived_ it. But hearing it said so plainly…

He thought his mood couldn’t get much darker, but with every street they stepped through, his chest grow more and more leaden. Figures huddled under thin awnings along each street, most having already given up on begging. An old woman cried to a food vendor, explaining that she couldn’t afford the new prices - and the vendor explained that with the new taxes, they couldn’t stay afloat without bumping them up. In one alley, a bundle of blankets with a cloyingly putrid stench was cared for only by the crows.

This was Fhirdiad? This was the result of Cornelia’s rule, a rule he had been fighting to uphold?

Dazed, he only put one foot in front of the other, vision narrowed to the back of Yuri’s boots and the mire of slush they trudged through. He didn’t notice anyone approaching until they collided with him. He stumbled to the side. Below, the grimy face of a child stared back.

“Sorry, mister,” the kid said.

“It’s alright,” Ashe said, and had to smile. The ploy was so obvious; he had no idea how he’d ever gotten away with it as a kid. “I need my wallet, but I have a few coins to spare.”

The kid’s eyes widened, stuttering between fear at getting caught and confusion at the gentle reaction. His eyes darted between Ashe and Yuri, wanting to run, but in the end he put Ashe’s wallet back in his outstretched hand. Ashe counted out as many coins as he could spare, knowing they’d need a few for potential bribes to the castle staff - and then counted out a bit more, because he noticed two more grubby faces peeking out from behind a cart. All three ogled with disbelief when he placed the coins into the little would-be pickpocket’s palms.

Yuri huffed a sigh. And then, he reached into his own pocket. The kid’s face was about to be torn in two with wonderment as a few more coins tinkled atop the small stack. Ashe, too, found his face split into a smile.

“C’mon,” Yuri said gruffly to Ashe.

“Thanks, misters! Thanks - thanks!” The kid was almost beside himself, and scampered over to the two that were hiding behind the cart. There couldn’t have been more than 20 years between the three of them. They huddled protectively around their bounty, voices excited even as they tried to keep them hushed.

“Here,” Yuri said, and Ashe turned back to face him as they walked away. He handed Ashe another few coins. “You might need them. Let’s try to hold onto the rest of our funds, yeah?”

“Right,” Ashe said bashfully. “I’m surprised you’re not chiding me for being so soft-hearted.” Yuri’s gaze turned to the side at all, brows raising.

“Hey, now. I’m not so cold. This place… well, I don’t need to tell you it’s depressing as hell. Whatever you can do to make yourself feel better, I don’t have a problem with.”

Ashe fell quiet. He supposed that really was all he had been doing… making himself feel better. As the pointed peaks of the castle emerged through the fog, they came across more huddled figures, more people with pallid hands and hungry faces on street corners. In the open plaza that stretched beneath the grand staircase to the castle, a group of soldiers were puzzling over a body. The face was covered, but it was an adult, hands blackened with frostbite - in the end, two of the soldiers hauled it up and began carrying it away. In their wake were two young faces, blank in shock. They were holding hands. The two children stayed next to where the body had been, even after the last soldier sadly shook his head at them and walked away.

Ashe stopped in his tracks, heart stilling.

“We have to do something,” he said to Yuri. “Take them somewhere safe.”

“All the churches in the city have been closed down,” Yuri said.

“I know. I know, but there must be _somewhere,”_ Ashe pleaded. He wasn’t sure with who. He started to walk over. Yuri caught his arm, a warm shackle.

“There’s nothing we can do for them right now.” His voice was steady, but Ashe couldn’t meet his eye.

It was true. Even if they’d managed to save two children, and temporarily help three more… what was five among five hundred? Five thousand?

-

He looked down at the bowl of porridge. Steaming, thick, enough to fill a stomach, to save a life.

“Not to your tastes?” Yuri asked. Ashe raised a spoonful to his mouth. It was delicious, and that made it all the more disgusting.

“Just not in the mood to eat,” he said. He tried for a smile, but felt it falter before his spoon even rested on the table. Yuri was quiet. The crackling fire sounded like crisply falling snow. The two sat alone in the castle kitchen. It was dark, and drafty enough that the few candles wavered, turning the shadows of hanging pans and knives into twisting monsters lurking above.

Getting into the castle kitchens had been far easier than Ashe could’ve hoped. The head chef had actually yelled at them for being late and hardy skimmed their letters of recommendation. They were sent straight to work, frantically chopping and cleaning and fetching ingredients - and then once the final meal had been served, the other cooks had taken advantage of the kitchen hierarchy and given the newcomers cleaning duty. This was the first time they’d had a chance to sit down.

“We’ll save it for when you’re in the mood, then,” Yuri said finally. He picked up both full bowls, and moved back to the pot.

“Please, eat, Yuri.” Ashe said. He wished his voice sounded stronger.

“Nah. Honestly, I’m not in the mood, either.” Metal clanked on clay as he scraped the porridge back into the pot.

“It really was tasty,” Ashe said, smiling at Yuri’s back. “Thank you for making it. I’m sorry I… that I’m like this.”

“What do you mean?” Yuri didn’t sound accusatory, only gently curious. It made it almost impossible not to open up.

“I’m just… I feel sick. After what we saw earlier today. It reminded me so much of what it was like for me and my siblings, back then. Only… there were so many of them. So many children. I know what you said was right, that there’s nothing we can do to help, but… I can’t eat, knowing.”

Yuri slouched back onto the low bench beside him. He leaned his elbows onto the table, hands entwined before his chin. The candlelight caught on his long lashes, skin warmed but still pale as a statue. It was a while before he spoke.

“Yeah. Yeah, that was a hard thing for me to see, too. There were a lot of kids like that, when I lived in Enbarr.”

“You used to live in the Empire?”

“Sort of. Just stayed on the streets, mostly. That’s where I met the good ol’ Count, actually.” He reached out for a mug of water, took a long gulp. It collided with the table with a _bang._ Count Rowe? Why would they have met in Enbarr? Again, before Ashe could ask, Yuri changed the subject. “But, I didn’t say there’s nothing we can go. I said there’s nothing we can do _right now._ ”

“We can help?” Ashe asked. He hoped Yuri meant it, and not just as one of those things that they had to try to believe, to keep going. Yuri nodded, jaw set.

“Not quickly. And not without grabbing more power than society says we deserve. But we can.” His eyes burned. Sparks caught at the edges of Ashe’s heart. In the glare of that light, it was impossible to disbelieve even that audacious a resolve.

-

The next week was a blur of nerves. The head cook was a grouchy bull of an old woman, taking out her ire at having the household staff constantly shuffled around on Ashe and Yuri, her two newest “bungling bespawlers.” Ironically, it seemed that moving staff around and regularly dismissing huge swaths of the castle servants was meant to be an anti-espionage measure, but it made their quick operation much easier to get away with. Still, every night, Ashe laid in the servants’ chambers feeling like he was trying to fall asleep in a lion's den.

It wasn’t that the other servants were suspicious, or cruel, or even standoffish; it was that most of them were friendly and he felt horrible about deceiving them. Really, most seemed bored between shifts and were more than willing to chat - it was almost _too_ easy to bring up the rumors about Dimitri surviving. There was the usual _I saw the body myself, though it was too rotten to really tell who it was._ One young porter said, _there was a big scuffle in the dungeons, not a week before the execution - lots of guards died, but the ones that didn’t weren’t allowed to talk about it, and then they were all fired - and THEN all of them mysteriously died, one by one!_ Which seemed like a promising lead, except when Ashe asked how he heard this, he rattled off, _I heard from my brother who knew a guy who used to work with a lass that was seeing a friend of a soldier who knew one of the guards that died._

It was impossible to keep opinions from spreading mold on the kernels of information sprinkled among the gossip. More than once Ashe had to grit his teeth through conjecture on how _that drudge from Duscur must’ve been the one to kill Rufus and blame it on His Highness,_ or _didn’t the Prince get what he deserved, bringing a dog like that into the castle -_ Anytime a servant started spewing bile like that, Ashe knew he could toss out any other garbage that might flow out of their mouth. It was hard to keep from punching them, though.

After only a few days, he was dizzy from all the same dubious hearsay cycling through his ears. At the root of the problem, everyone who actually worked in the castle at the time of the execution was gone. He finally managed to piece together that the grouchy old Head Cook had kept her position even through the upheaval five years ago, but no matter how pleasant he made himself, she’d just bark out orders to _chop faster, scrub harder, keep your gob shut._ And he had to - the workload of a castle cook was no joke, and most evening and early mornings he was as tired as he’d been during exam season at the Officer’s Academy. But _his_ work couldn’t end with normal staff hours - it was obvious that hearsay from the other servants wouldn’t be enough to prove heads or tails of the Prince’s supposed execution. Trapped together in the boiling kitchens by day, he and Yuri took turns investigating the castle by night, and agreed to meet up later to share their findings.

The oddest things were the mages. Not the regular court mages in their blue regalia, but dressed head-to-toe in black and wearing beaked masks. They spoke to no one but each other, passing through the night-dark hallways like shadows more than men; Ashe could’ve sword that when one tugged down his collar to scratch his neck, his skin was grey as a gravestone. Granted, Ashe had to spend a solid half an hour calming himself down and un-convincing himself that he'd seen ghost, but he couldn’t fully deny seeing that ghastly pale swatch of skin.

The managed to put together a steady understanding of the mages' schedule - on the fourth night was when he made an even worse discovery. Several mages always made their way down to the dungeons a few hours after sundown. Ashe had yet to find a chance to follow, as the entrance to the dungeons were more arduously guarded than anywhere else in the castle. After the sounds of grinding metal and half-human wailing crawled up from the depths, he was almost relieved he couldn’t follow. His mind’s eye drowned him in images of torture tools that came to him in flashes as he butchered quails and lined sausages in the kitchen by day.

One morning, about a week in, Ashe was busy lugging a few haunches of salted pork from storage when a hand clench over his mouth. He was dragged inside a dark room; flailingly he stomped on his assailant’s toe, but he couldn’t even open his mouth enough to bite.

“Ow. It’s me, no need to be so rough.” Yuri’s voice was a low growl against the shell of his ear. One by one, his fingers peeled away from Ashe’s mouth.

“You grab me out of nowhere and tell _me_ not to be rough?” Ashe muttered. He wasn’t trying to sound petulant, but being spooked out of nowhere tended to do that to him. The air was stiff with dust and it smelled chalky.

“You would’ve screamed. I’ve been watching the other servants, and this is the least-trodden room - wouldn’t do to have you give away a valuable hiding spot.”

“You just wanted to mess with me,” Ashe said, forlorn.

“Maybe.” It was hard to tell if Yuri was smiling in the nearly-black little room, but it was easy enough to picture. “Anyhow, have you learned anything useful?”

“Hardly,” Ashe admitted. “Just that all the staff from before the execution were replaced. Apparently, if it’s suspected that anyone is a traitor, they get fired or even executed without a trial.”

“Hmm. That would make sense, with how the dungeons are.”

“Have you been down there?”

“No. Haven’t you noticed? The stairwells to the dungeons are the most heavily guarded place in the whole castle. Not just soldiers, either, but those freaky mages with the masks. I’ve checked at all hours of the night, and they’re always there.”

Ashe nodded. “Those mages are definitely odd… the other servants are too scared to talk to them. But if they aren’t keeping prisoners, why put so much effort into guarding the dungeons? His Highness couldn’t still be down there?”

“What would be the point to keeping him alive?”

“Well, what else would be down there?”

“Hmm. You heard those odd noises at night? Those screams that sound like ghosts?-”

“Please stop teasing me about the ghost thing-”

“-but more than that, there's that clanking noise, like metal being dropped, or maybe gears turning. I’m not teasing you.”

“It was the same for me,” Ashe pondered, a memory coming to the front of his mind. “Actually, when I’ve had to run out to market to fetch ingredients, I noticed something odd. All around the castle, they’re building strange metal pillars.”

“Is that what’s inside those white tents that are always roped off?” Yuri mused. “I noticed those masked mages bustling about, but didn’t get a chance to investigate.”

“I got lucky while going to the fish market before dawn, and one was left unguarded. I don’t think they were finished making it yet, but it was silver, bigger around than a typical column and twice as tall as me. I’m not sure what they’re for.”

“I figured those mages were reinforcements from the Empire, or Cornelia’s elite castle mages. I didn’t imagine they’d be engineers. But that would explain the scraping metal sounds.“

“You think they’re building something in the dungeons?”

“I’m starting to.” Yuri pulled out his journal and _Loog and the Maiden of Wind,_ along with a scroll that he unfurled. It had some kind of sigil pained across it - Ashe assumed to assist with the warp spell. They complied all the oddities they’d noticed, keenly aware that they still had no solid footing on their main objective. Ashe helped encode the message. In a back corner of the closet, the purple flash of Yuri’s warp magic was obscured by trunks and canvas.

Disheartened, Ashe asked what more they could do. Yuri buried his hand in the fine hair by his temple, voice low.

“If we’re going to find anything solid, our best shot is either the dungeons or Cornelia’s personal chambers. I’ll focus on coming up with a plan to get into one or the other over the next few days. In the meantime, get a better look at those metal pillars around the city.”

Ashe nodded, glad to have a plan, no matter how vague. He hoisted up the pork haunches and said,

“I’d better get going with these, or the Head Cook will be serving my head on a platter.”

-

The next morning, he managed to get a better look at the metal pillars. He couldn’t make head or tails of the intricate gears and wires running through the inside. He pulled his hand back with a hiss after getting too hands on resulted in a harsh shock to his fingers. The closest thing he could compare it to was a fire orb, only it didn’t have an input for mages to pour their magic into. Could there be a long-range magical weapon that didn’t need to be manned? He jotted down what notes he could for his next rendezvous with Yuri in the chalky-smelling storage closet. It had started to feel like the only truly safe place in the whole castle.

Ashe arrived first for their next meetup. Yuri told him that Cornelia had received some manner of urgent news, and was planning a trip away from the castle the very next day. He didn’t know what the dire news was, exactly, only that it seemed like a lengthy trip, as the stable hands and footmen were frantically readying a fleet of carriages.

“No use not striking while the iron is hot,” Yuri grinned.

“Have you come up with a plan? She must have someone keep watch over her chambers, even when she’s away”

“Yeah. Some friends showed me a handy shortcut to her chambers through the servants’ passages. And with a little more coaxing, I think we’ll have a suitable disguise.”

“Who are your ‘friends,’ exactly?” Ashe asked, uneasy.

“Two of Cornelia’s personal maids.” A smile spread over Yuri's face, equal parts menacing and amused. Ashe suddenly felt very, very nervous.

“When you say _disguises,”_ Ashe started. Then stopped.

“Look at you, putting the pieces together!” Yuri cooed.

“The piece I’m most trying to put together is why you look so excited,” Ashe sighed.

“Because we finally have something to do other than eavesdropping on useless gossip.” Yuri leaned forward, and for some bizarre reason. Ashe’s heart leapt and he scrambled backwards. Unfortunately, in the confined of an overstuffed and unorganized storage closet, there wasn’t so much room to ‘scramble back’ as there was ‘scramble into a chest and careen over backwards.’

The crash of something - a lot of somethings - clattered over behind him. Dazed, Ashe could only think how lucky he was that nothing had fallen on him - before the panic started to creep in.

“What are you loiter-sacks doing!?” A coarse shout from outside the closet had Yuri rushing to haul Ashe up. But no matter how quick they were, the Head Cook was quicker.

She swung open the door to find Ashe and Yuri nose-to-nose in the dark, snug space.

Nobody said anything. The sensation of Yuri’s grip on his shoulder and hip was a numbing reminder of every decision he had made to reach this moment in his life. The Head Cook was clearly experiencing the same. As time flowed on, the silence numbed the humiliation into something like peace.

And then Yuri had to talk.

“We were looking for the spare uniforms. I stained my pants.” He paused, profoundly. “Spilled some cream.”

Ashe wanted to spill his own brains.

“The spare uniforms are in the launderer’s chambers,” the Head Cook gritted out with more restraint than had ever before appeared on the old woman’s face. Then, she muttered something that sounded like _wanton whelps_ and stalked away.

“I’ll see you again tomorrow,” Yuri purred to Ashe, just loud enough for her to hear.

“Why. Why are you like this.” Ashe muttered, definitely too quietly for her to hear. Yuri shrugged, catlike.

“Good way to ensure she won’t be coming by _this_ particular closet anytime soon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NEXT TIME!!  
> -Yuri's vaguely threatening make-up ASMR channel  
> -Fodlan's ugliest maid outfits  
> -Flirting for the sake of espionage


	5. Lone Moon - Nearby Warmth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ashe pursed his lips, trying to keep his nose un-scrunched as feathery bristles glided over his eyelid. Not being able to see only made the tickling sensation stronger, so he cracked his other eye open and instantly regretted it. Yuri’s face was but a breath away, warmly lit by the candles they’d found in the storage closet. He caught Ashe peeking and flicked his nose with the handle of the makeup brush.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another week, another chapter! Again, many many thanks to everyone who left comments and kudos! You guys make my day~

The specter of their mission to infiltrate Cornelia’s personal quarters hung over him into the lightless hours before dawn. Rather than try to hunt down sleep he’d never catch, Ashe decided hunt down someone else.

He had _maybe_ gotten in the habit of overspending a bit at the markets in the morning so he could _maybe_ buy more than the kitchens needed so he could _maybe_ give the excess to the homeless folks he’d gotten to know along his route, which was _maybe_ technically stealing from the royal coffers and _maybe_ could’ve gotten him executed if he was discovered. So far, though, he hadn’t been. He was good enough at bartering that he likely didn’t spend much more than the other errand-runners, even with the extra fish and biscuits thrown in. And if any of the other staff noticed that there were fewer leftovers from Cornelia’s meals when he was in charge of cleaning up, nobody said anything.

He smuggled a barely-bitten turkey leg and a bit of honey-cake as he slipped through the servants’ passages and into the frigid pre-dawn streets. Half-veiled moonlight gave cobblestone corners to the darkness. The two he sought usually huddled on the edges of the plaza, and sure enough, he found them under the shallow eaves of a shop window.

“Good morning,” he whispered when she saw blue eyes peeking silently up from beneath a hood. “I’m sorry if I woke you?”

The girl shook her head. Her smile was wan, but true. Her little sister was still asleep, bundled against her side. Ashe had barely seen their faces, that first day he’d arrived in Fhirdiad - standing hand-in-hand as soldiers carried their mother’s body away. Maybe it was the Goddess’ mercy he was able to find them again, or maybe it was the way their orange hair stuck out against the dull grey-blue he’d gotten so accustomed to. Ashe retrieved the wrapped turkey leg, the girl’s eyes widening.

“Thank you,” she whispered, showing gratitude even more with cold-watered eyes. This time, Ashe shook his head. Now came the hard part.

“I won’t be able to bring any more food after this. I have to leave.”

Her eyes widened again, this time in panic.

“How long will you be gone?”

“A long time. Maybe forever.”

The girl’s eyes flitted down to her sister. She hugged the food beneath her shawl, breathing gone heavy. Ashe said, “I’m sorry I can’t do more.”

She looked up at him again, looking so much like Annette that he had to look away. Only - Annette.

Annette.

She lived in Fhirdiad. She was of a noble household. She…

“I’m sorry I can’t help you anymore,” Ashe repeated, words stumbling behind his thoughts. “But I might know someone who can.”

It was so hard to leave them there. With a half-formed plan hammering in his chest, Ashe snuck back into the castle, renewed determination propelling him through the morning to the hour Yuri had set for their mission to begin.

-

“Is this… really necessary?”

“Stop scrunching your nose.”

“But it _tickles_ -”

“If you’d prefer, I could just jab the brush in your eye?”

“Please don’t.”

“Then stop squirming. I’m almost done.”

Ashe pursed his lips, trying to keep his nose un-scrunched as feathery bristles glided over his eyelid. Not being able to see only made the tickling sensation stronger, so he cracked his other eye open and instantly regretted it. Yuri’s face was but a breath away, warmly lit by the candles they’d found in the storage closet. He caught Ashe peeking and flicked his nose with the handle of the makeup brush.

“I didn’t move,” Ashe whispered indignantly, obediently closing his eye.

“Just _relax_ ,” Yuri breathed. A wave of shivers crashed over the back of Ashe’s skull. Merciful Seiros, he had to be blushing to the tips of his ears - he could only pray the lighting was too dim for Yuri to tell. He shifted his weight on the crate, nearly sending a roll of canvas toppling over. Yuri somehow caught it without sending the makeup palette flying from his knee. “You won’t pass for a maid if your eyeliner is streaked across your forehead,” he gritted out.

“Sorry, sorry!” Ashe murmured miserably. What else was he supposed to say? _Actually, Yuri. all the whispering and barely-there touching is making my brain melt out of my ears!_

The close-quarters of their ‘consultation closet,’ as Yuri had nicknamed it, was not ideal quarters for a makeover. He gripped the sides of the chest he was perched on, managing to hold still through a light dusting of powder on his cheeks.

“Alright, all that’s left is your lips,” Yuri whispered. Ashe steeled himself. He just kept his eyes squeezed shut and waited for it to end. The sound of a cap unscrewing was trailed by the glossy tone of fabric moving. Luckily, lipstick didn’t appear to require the same delicate touch as eyeshadow, because Yuri’s fingertip scrubbed so roughly across his mouth that it killed whatever tension had been gathering in his spine.

Yuri had already pulled his glove back on by the time Ashe pried his eyes open. He inspected Ashe’s face like it were an exam question he wasn’t quite sure about. Then he materialized a small flower pin, wood inlaid with a gentle green stone. His delicate fingers brushed Ashe’s bangs back, and clipped it behind his ear.

“Good. Now, onto the fun part.” Yuri flashed a grin along with a small key that he used to open one of the smaller chests packed along the floor. It creaked open.

“Ta-da,” Yuri said flatly. The two folded squares of fabric were a moldy sort of green-brown in the candlelight. They were - not what Ashe had been expecting. Not that he had been expecting anything in particular, certainly not anything lascivious, not at all.

“Where did you get these from?” He had to ask.

“Some new friends. They were quite fed up with Cornelia’s treatment of them and were very happy to have a day off.”

That seemed entirely too convenient, but Ashe held back from pushing. Yuri unfurled one of the maid uniforms, revealing more gaudy lace and bloated poofs than he ever needed to see in a lifetime. High-collared, long-sleeved, full-length; at least it looked warm?

“I can see why your friends were eager to get rid of them. They’re kind of…”

“Ugly as shit?” Yuri offered.

“…Frumpy.”

“Just be thankful Cornelia prefers her maids not to outshine her, and doesn’t make them dress the same way she does.”

Ashe choked. He’d only caught sight of Cornelia once or twice from a distance, but her sense of fashion had been - memorable. Was she even human, to walk around Fhirdiad during the Lone Moon with so much skin exposed? And of course, just then, Yuri _had_ to toss his hair over his shoulder. And so, completely naturally, Ashe’s thoughts drifted to what Yuri would look like wearing…

He tripped over a chest. Yuri - how could Yuri possibly have a reputation for immodesty when he was constantly covered from his neck to the tip of every finger and toe? Ashe had barely seen so much as his wrist. So, in an outfit like Cornelia’s - no, no no! Not territory to explore while stuck in a cramped, lowly-lit closet!

“Yeah, good thing,” Ashe choked out.

Yuri nonchalantly pulled the frilly monstrosity over his head. He squirmed like he was being eaten by an odious, bloated snake, but eventually got the thing over his shoulders.

“How do I look?” Yuri asked, striking the most fashionable pose he could manage without knocking over several caskets.

“…Fine?”

“And everyone seems to think you’re an honest man.”

“Alright, alright! It’s… not exactly your color.”

Yuri let out a chuckle. He stuffed the other dress into Ashe’s arms.

“Maybe it’ll suit you better. Green, to match your eyes.”

Ashe couldn’t help but feel insulted. His eyes were nice and bright, not swampy like this. He struggled even more than Yuri with getting the gown to swallow his shoulders. He heaved a sigh of relief that there were no mirrors hidden away in here.

“Well, what a fine pair of maids we make.” Yuri grinned. He offered a dainty hand. “Shall we be off?”

-

No one stopped them as they crept through the servants’ passages, mops and buckets occasionally scraping along the pressing walls.

What used to be the royal family’s private chamber was lit with midmorning sun, turning the dark furniture handsome with its brightness. The stone walls were empty of tapestries, all of them hung around the large, four-poster bed. Devoid of warmth, lifeless - there was only one bright thing in the room.

Cornelia kept a portrait of the royal family on the wall. And she’d disfigured it. A deep gnash marred King Lambert’s neck, the canvas flapping like a swathe of white, dead skin. The Queen had lipstick drawn thick over her eyes, a blindfold of red. And Dimitri… he must have been so young when this was painted. The spot he should have occupied on his father’s knee had been torn to shreds. With the King and Queen, it seemed like she was saying, ‘job well done.’ But with Dimitri…

“She really hated him, didn’t she…” Ashe scowled, trying to keep the tremors of anger in his hands alone. “Do you think… if he escaped, she’d take out her anger on this?”

“What was that conversation we had the other day about not getting hopes up?” Yuri asked. Ashe took a ragged breath. The pain of seeing a usurper defile the one thing that remained of the royal family was a thorn wedged in his ribs, but they had a mission to carry out. Yuri had already busied himself with picking through a large chest. “What the hell? There’s nothing in here. It’s just blank parchment.” Yuri kept his voice low, but left the chest with a dull kick. He quickly moved beside the bed. “Not so much as a scrap of paper in the nightstand… you’d think she has to keep her makeup somewhere.”

Ashe set about investigating, too. The large wooden wardrobe creaked as he slowly opened its double doors.

“Her wardrobe is oddly empty, too. There’s a few dresses, accessories, and… That’s it.”

“Never thought I’d feel so disappointed going through a woman’s wardrobe.”

“Yuri…”

“It’s a joke. Anyway, her personal study should be through that door - we’ll probably have better luck there.”

There was a small door set into the stone across from the bed. Yuri opened it, and his whole body tensed. Before Ashe could ask what the matter was, Yuri turned back, motions muted, and picked up a broom and bucket. Ashe peered through the door, down a narrow and dim hallway, to see a man in armor standing guard.

Yuri’s eyes rested on Ashe’s surreptitiously. He gave a minuscule nod, and started carrying the broom and bucket down the hall.

Heart pounding, Ashe scrambled to pick up the rags and mop. The hallway wasn’t that long, but every step towards the guard felt like a step towards the executioner’s block.

“We were ordered to tidy up our Lady’s personal study today,” Yuri said, voice both soft and confident. He - had he practiced sounding like a woman?

Ashe’s gaze fell under the weight of the guard’s appeasing stare. The creak of hinges told him that the door to the office had been opened, and the guard was standing to the side and ushering them in. Yuri gave a curtsy and Ashe did his best to follow suit; not easy with an armful of cleaning supplies. Ashe sidled closer to the door.

“You - let me see your face,” the guard demanded.

Ashe froze. The pounding of his heart stretched the simple moment to the point that he could feel each creak of the vertebrae in his neck as he tilted his chin upwards. The guard had a stern face boxed in by bristly eyebrows, at least a head and a half taller than Ashe. Leering down, he asked,

“You’re new here?” Only, he didn’t sound aggressive, didn’t even sound suspicious. No, he sounded much worse. He sounded like _Sylvain._

“I am,” Ashe said, trying to make his voice soft and high. It came out like his nose was stuffed with bees.

“Well, maybe after you’re done tidying up, you could use a tour of the castle? It’s pretty massive.” The guard loosened his grip on his lance, leaning casually into the wall. Ashe was completely at a loss. Is this what it meant to be a spy? Is this really how today was going to go? Getting hit on while waring the ugliest maid uniform Fódlan had ever seen? Luckily, Yuri, his savior, cleared his throat from inside the office.

“S-s-sorry, really have to get to work right now!” Ashe stammered and threw himself through the door. Yuri closed it demurely behind them. Ashe’s forehead was so sweaty that given a few more seconds, it would’ve washed the makeup clean off his face.

“Well, guess we know who’s the cuter one between us,” Yuri teased with a pout. Ashe’s blood was still rushing so fast that he didn’t answer, just wiped his forehead with one lacy, mold-green sleeve. He tried to catch his bearings and immediately his eyes snagged on his reflection in a standing mirror. Even with the admittedly nice makeup and hair accessory, the dress made him look like a bog creature fresh from skinning fish with his bare hands! That guard was out of his wits.

Yuri paced around the room, inspecting the desk, bureau, clocks - the office was stark and fastidiously organized, a contrast to the opulence of Cornelia’s image. The most magnificent thing in the room was the wide double-window above the desk. A hulking cabinet with tall drawers commanded one wall of the room - and it looked like each drawer was separately locked. Ashe set about figuring out how to open them while Yuri took an interest in the desk.

Each of the locks on the drawers was more complex than Ashe had ever seen. Pressing his ear against one, a mechanical whirring peeked out from the tiny keyhole. The hum would cease while a lockpick was inserted, but finding the right sequence was tricky. The rustling of Yuri flipping through papers and the tick-tock of the grand clock hurried him along, but it was still more than five minutes before he managed to pop the lock of one drawer.

Inside was a sea of bronze. Mechanical parts, small enough to sit upon his fingernail, huddled in meticulously labeled sections. Gears, screws, others Ashe didn’t know what to call. Yuri crouched beside him, leaning over Ashe’s shoulder to pinch a gear between his fingers.

“Well, well, does esteemed Court Mage Cornelia have a clock-making hobby?” He muttered.

“All this can’t just be for clocks? Even the locks have strange mechanical parts… Could these be part of those odd metal towers outside?”

“Could be.” Yuri didn’t sound convinced.

“What else, then?” Ashe floundered, not even sure what he was really trying to ask. “She’s originally from the Empire, right? Do they… I don’t know, use machine parts for their advanced magic?”

“Not that I know of. Though, I wouldn’t really be the one to ask. Why don’t you see what’s in these other drawers? Try this one.” Yuri pointed to a wide, flat drawer along the top of the cabinet. Ashe moved towards it, and noticed Yuri slipping the tiny gear along with a few other bits of silver into a pocket.

“Aren’t we supposed to leave without a trace?” Ashe asked.

“There are so many that I doubt a few missing pieces won’t set off any alarms. I’ll warp these to our friend in the barn along with our report, maybe she can make more sense of them.” He shut the drawer. He shook it again, but it had automatically locked.

Still nervous, Ashe set to work opening the flat drawer Yuri had pointed out. It was just as tricky as the last; maybe trickier, with Yuri’s eyes on the back of his neck.

“Anything about his Highness in the desk?” He asked, trying to remind Yuri what their actual mission was.

“No. Lots of trade agreements with Enbarr. Inventories, tax records, reports on the number of refugees trying to enter the city… no personal correspondence at all.”

“Mm,” Ashe encouraged, putting his ear against the lock. The mechanical hums came at slightly different pitches - maybe they would form a pattern? Yuri continued,

“Well, I’ll check the bureau. Ah, how convenient it would be if she kept a personal diary: _Fifth of the Garland Moon. Tried to execute the Crown Prince, but he escaped. Drat. Anyway, had some lovely caviar for dinner, but Brenda said my new crystal tiara makes my forehead look fat!”_

Ashe chuckled, but kept his focus on the lock. His best guess that there were some sort of rotating components inside, making the whirring noises - and they moved at different speeds, thus the varied pitches. There must be a specific point in each rotation when he needed to push the needle further in. It was difficult at the beginning, with so many different pieces humming together into an indistinguishable drone, but as he got further in the various pitches stood out more, and he could better guess the timing he needed to use for each step.

“There we go,” Ashe coaxed as the last pin tumbler clicked into place and fell silent. The drawer slid open.

“Anything interesting?” Yuri asked, engrossed in another slab of paperwork.

“I’m… well, I’m not sure what all this is,” Ashe said, looking down on a stack of drawings. Not of people, but - geometric shapes, sigils, notations in a language he couldn’t recognize. Most dreaded of all, math. A lot of math.

Yuri abandoned his efforts at the bureau and stepped to Ashe’s side. His fingertips traced over the stack of papers, each as wide as an arm was long. From his furrowed brow and twisted lip, Ashe guessed he had no more idea of what all this meant than Ashe did. He lifted up the top sheet, handing it delicately to Ashe as he inspected the equally mysterious papers underneath. He flipped between them, expression unreadable, but paused on one particular sheet. Rather than sigils, it was mostly drawings of what Ashe could only guess were complex machine parts.

“Seems like construction plans,” Yuri muttered.

“For what?” Ashe asked. Yuri shook his head, slowly.

“A weapon. A big one. That’s my best guess.”

“A weapon?” Ashe’s eyes widened. “Like those metal towers around the city?”

“Maybe. Or maybe much worse.” Yuri’s eyes lifted from the papers, heavy with worry. “These notes, whatever they’re for, are important. I’d wager, more important than whether or not Dimitri is alive. I’m going to do what I can to transcribe them so Judith and Claude can get an idea of what’s going on here.”

“That’s not our mission, though,” Ashe had to say.

“I know. But my gut tells me this is bigger than our mission.”

Ashe should argue. As soldiers, as _spies,_ it wasn’t their place to make those kind of decisions. But Yuri had already whipped his journal out from beneath the dress and was transcribing a batch of the notes into it. Whatever language it was written in, even the characters were unknown to Ashe - would Judith and Claude even be able to make any sense of this? Rather than hem and haw and try to get Yuri to change his mind, though, he set about his original task of checking through the cabinet’s other contents. Every lock was an uphill battle, but he got better as time passed, and managed to open four more. Each contained mechanical and magical devices more bizarre than the last, and each brought a renewed vigor to Yuri’s scribblings in his notebook.

Until he opened one of the smaller drawers. Inside, there were three round objects, made of stone, each just small enough to be held in one hand. It looked like there was some sort of engraving on them, but Ashe would have to shuffle them around to see.

“Don’t touch them!” Yuri hissed, striking his hand away. Startled, Ashe rounded on him.

“What’s wrong? Are they bombs?”

“Worse,” Yuri said, reaching in and pulling one out to examine it. “They’re Crest Stones.”

A thundering knock at the door sent Ashe’s heart racing. He and Yuri’s eyes caught on each other, then on the door. It hadn’t been more than an hour - there was no way Cornelia could be back already! Before they could scatter in panic, a languid voice came through the door.

“Miss? Misses? Just wanted to check how you’re doing in there.” The dallying guard from before!

“We’re - we’re doing fine!” Ashe squeaked.

“Must be awful messy in there,” he called back. Ashe could only giggle nervously, looking to Yuri in panic. Then, the clink of a key inserted in the lock-

Ashe threw himself against the door. It was already open a crack, and he peered up at the startled expression of the guard.

“It’s - it’s not so bad.” Ashe smiled, knowing how much of a nervous wreck he was right now. The guard smiled back.

“No need to be modest. If you’d like some extra help-”

“No!” Ashe cried. “It’s just - Lady Cornelia is very particular about who she allows in her private study. So I’ve heard. Hahaha!”

“Aw, but you’ve been working so hard for so long. Surely you deserve a little break?” The pressure on the door increased, until Ashe’s arms were shaking trying to keep it mostly closed. Yuri slid up behind him, whispering in his ear.

“I only need 20 more minutes. Go out and distract him.”

Ashe couldn’t turn to look at Yuri, but his smile went stale. The gathering flush on his cheeks had everything to do with Yuri leaning into his side and the sheer terror of being caught, but the guard seemed to take it as being flustered by his admittedly charming smile, so Ashe ran with it. He lowered his chin, looking up through accentuated eyelashes. “Well… maybe. Give me a moment? To ask my helpmate.”

“Sure!” The guard grinned. He finally let Ashe close the door. He scurried away immediately, taking Yuri with him.

“Distract him for 20 minutes? How do I do that?” He whispered frantically. Yuri fully rolled his eyes.

“He’s obviously bored. Just flirt with him a while, it’ll be fine.”

“Flirt with him!? Why don’t you flirt with him!?”

“You’re cuter than me, you have to do it.”

“Wh-what kind of an excuse-” Ashe choked the rest back, as his voice was rising to a pitch that was absolutely _not_ cute.

“Can _you_ perfectly transcribe these magical sigils? Hm?”

“…No.”

“Then…?” Yuri waved a hand at the door.

Every day, Ashe tasted new flavors of despair.

At least, if he were to be a sacrificial lamb, he could go to the butcher’s block with dignity.

As he stepped out of the office, the guard immediately started talking. Ashe smiled and nodded, smiled and nodded, only having to stutter out an ‘Ashlynn’ when asked for his name. The guard, who introduced himself as Gatrie, wasn’t all that bad looking, which was somewhat offset by the fact that he clearly _knew_ that, and the subject made it into every other sentence he spoke. The other half were about his bravery and valor and trustworthiness. Ashe would have been happy to keep silently nodding along for a full 20 minutes, but apparently Gatrie realized that he hadn’t been paying ‘Ashlynn’ enough compliments, and moved to correct his mistake with a vigor that sent Ashe’s head spinning.

“Of course, it takes another kind of valor to be a maid! Nobody gives you enough credit - where would the rest of us be without you, eh? But I have to say, Ashlynn, don’t push yourself too hard! You’re too cute to waste away your whole life working! Those adorable freckles and those bright green eyes deserve to see the light of day and be appreciated the world over! Your charm is sort of boyish. I mean that as a compliment! The short hair really suits you.”

“Th-thank you?” His nervous habit had his hand trying to re-tuck his bangs behind his ear, but the flower Yuri pinned there caught his fingers. Ashe pressed his back into the office door, face heating. He’d _never_ been complimented like this before - if the whole situation weren’t so ridiculous, it might have actually felt nice.

“Speaking of, if you’re still not familiar with the city, I can show you around our brewers’ alley sometime? Nothing to keep you warm through winter nights like a good cider!”

Sunken faces, huddled bodies crammed in snow-tinged alleys, a black-blue hand peeking from beneath a tarp - he’d seen enough of Fhirdiad under Cornelia’s rule.

“I’m… I’m not really good around crowds, ahaha… But Gatrie, you’re so - uh, gallant - I’m sure there are plenty of better-suited ladies who would love to accompany you.” Ashe immediately knew he’d said the wrong thing. Gatrie’s face crumpled.

“Yeah, you’d think so… But even when a charming lady is willing to accompany me, she always leaves right after I pay for her meal. Oh, I’m not saying I regret paying! Ladies deserve to be treated well! I just wish that once in a while, someone would actually be willing to stay around to chat with me…”

Ashe winced. Gatrie continued,

“It’s just, I figure, I’m strong, and I’m employed, and every lady I meet, I treat like a princess! What am I doing wrong? Are valorous, virile men not in demand anymore?”

Ashe’s eyes were attempting to roll back into his skull, but he valiantly maintained a sympathetic expression. Gatrie leaned against the wall, taking on a more ponderous tone.“Say, Ashlynn - what is it that you look for in a man?”

“Ah - m-me?” Ashe chirped.

“Yes, you! C’mon, you gotta let me know - what do charming lasses like? Say, what kind of body?”

“Well,” Ashe started, mind filling with the memories of sleeves rolled up over thick forearms as they planted seedlings in the greenhouse, a towering figure easily reaching to the top shelf to gather the spices Ashe couldn’t reach. “Tall, and broad… strong, but using that strength in a gentle way.” The words sunk in his stomach, and even he couldn’t understand why he took the question so earnestly. Gatrie looked pleased with the answer.

“Right, it only makes sense. Men should be powerful and protective!”

“They don’t have to be, though,” Ashe found himself saying. “Men can be beautiful, too… graceful, and slender.” Wait, what was he saying? Why was he suddenly thinking about long hair tossed over a shoulder, delicate fingers tucking hair behind his ear? Gatrie snapped him out of it with a puzzled sigh.

“Tall and muscular, or pretty and slender? That’s quite a range.”

“Y-yeah… but! Body type isn’t the most important thing!”

“Right, right. Well, what about personality?”

“Kind. Calm. Dedicated. Someone who… no matter how people might misunderstand him, he sticks to his principles.” Even if people feared and hated him for something beyond his control, he never lashed out, always shielded his companions behind him…

“Kind and dedicated, of course! A good man must always take care to be polite and chivalrous, no matter the occasion!”

“I think you can be kind and dedicated without being polite and chivalrous,” Ashe said. “Really, you can be cynical and rude, and still be kind.” Yuri was proof enough of that. Wait - no matter how people might misunderstand him, he sticks to his principles? That also applied to Yuri, didn’t it?

He couldn’t parse out the roil of feelings fighting for control of him at that moment, but Gatrie once again snapped him out of it.

“You want a cynical and rude, but calm and dedicated man?” Gatrie asked. “I’m not sure you’ll have much luck finding that. But, if such a fella does exist, you’ll be able to win him over!”

“I’m not sure about that. Nobody really… pays much mind to me,” Ashe said, depressed by how true the statement was. Gatrie inhaled to gear up for a _very_ long response, but the door to the royal chambers swung open. A man in a pointed black mask strode into the hallway.

Ashe’s heart stuttered.

“What are you doing here?” The mage asked, voice high and cold.

“We were told that, because our Lady is out on business, today would be a good time to clean her study.” Ashe kept his face lowered, hands crossed in front of him.

“Who told you that?” The mage snapped.

“Is there need to take such a tone with the young lady?” Gatrie cut in. The mage squared up his shoulders.

“How dare you question me? I will speak to this hireling however I choose.”

Gatrie narrowed his eyes. Silly as the man was, Ashe very much did not want him losing his job - or his life - over their affairs.

“We’re still in the middle of cleaning,” Ashe said, loudly enough that he was sure Yuri would hear. “If you’ll give us a few more moments, I’m sure everything will be to your satisfaction-”

“I don’t have time to wait for you to dust, foolish girl!” The mage snarled. Foolish girl? Was he trying to sound like a villain from a children’s story? The mage reached to shove Ashe to the side, but Gatrie caught his arm. “Unhand me, knave!” He spat.

“The lady says they need a few moments, so how hard can it be to give her a few moments?”

The mage sputtered indignantly. If they would just keep arguing for a few more minutes- but no, the mage merely waved his hands and some sort of dark magic forced Gatrie and Ashe apart, shoving them against the walls. Ashe reached out, wanting to stop him, but he was already through the door. Gatrie was saying something to Ashe, but he couldn’t hear through the hammering in his eardrums. It hadn’t been 20 minutes yet, if Yuri still had all the scrolls out, they’d have to brace for a fight with only small daggers for weapons.

But when Ashe peered through the door, Yuri was standing in the middle of the room, holding the broom with the poise of a practiced chambermaid.

“Good afternoon, sir,” Yuri said.

“Out with you!” He barked at Yuri.

Without missing a beat, Yuri bowed and started to gather up their supplies. Ashe stumbled in to help him. The mage headed over to the cabinet, scanning the drawers with glaring impatience. His fingers hovered over the drawer with the Crest Stones.

Ashe and Yuri’s eyes met over the mage’s shoulder. Yuri’s focus bored into the mage’s back like his knife was already planted there.

Ashe shook his head, subtle, praying that just the force of his worry was enough to keep Yuri at bay. Their main goal was to remain undetected, they couldn’t get greedy. The frustration on Yuri’s face was faint but glaring. Slowly, Ashe turned towards the door, begging for Yuri to follow.

When Yuri struck, Ashe was faster.

He stopped the blade just shy of the mage’s turned back. Neither made a sound. Where Ashe’s hand overlapped Yuri’s, a streak of red crept from beneath the skin. Ashe pulled his injured hand away, not even feeling the pain for the anxiety pulling in his wrist. Resolute, he turned for the door. Soon, two more sets of footsteps followed.

He nodded demurely to Gatrie, leading the way back into the main chamber. Even when he and Yuri slipped into the den of the servants’ passages, Ashe didn’t dare breathe a sigh of relief. Sweat made swampy fabric cling all along his back. Everything was close and dim, and when Yuri spoke, it was in a low hiss.

“That was our _best_ shot at getting into the dungeons. Two on one, it would’ve been simple to take his clothes-”

“How, without leaving a trace? With the guard right there…”

“Could’ve killed him, too.”

Ashe stilled. The narrow corridor pressed in around him. Yuri’s back shrunk, squeezed in from pressure on all sides. It took several paces for Yuri to realize he’d left Ashe behind. When he whipped around, his broom scraped the stone wall.

“What? You think we can get anywhere, playing friends with everyone? We’re out of here tomorrow, anyway.”

Ashe swallowed, head lowered.

“Even if we could’ve escaped, it’s better they never knew they were infiltrated at all.” The air was a fetid snare. Yuri breathed it like a mouthful of bile. As the rush wore off, a throbbing pain came to Ashe's hand. The gash was neither deep nor long, but he couldn't keep the blood from staining the frilly cuff a putrid brown. Yuri's eyes caught on it, filled with something that might have been pain, or might have been annoyance. But he didn’t say anything more, just turned and shrunk into darkness.

-

Yuri was grouchy the rest of the afternoon, chopping potatoes with such ferocity that Ashe pitied the unfortunate tubers. They made it back to the kitchen in time for dinner preparations, though there was much less to take care of with Cornelia’s entourage out of the castle. They had no time to talk over either their discoveries or plans to leave the city the next morning. Ashe’s mind raced between in all they’d discovered that afternoon and his own plans for that evening, wondering how - or _if_ \- he should make Yuri aware of his desire to visit Annette. By the time dinner was cleaned up, though, Yuri had already vanished.

If Ashe wanted to make his spontaneous visit happen, he only had tonight. Figuring Yuri must be up to his own machinations, Ashe set out to dusk-stained streets.

Finding Baron Dominic’s mansion wasn’t difficult. Getting inside, though - Ashe wished he could march right up to that stately red door and announce himself as the schoolmate of the Baron’s niece, but he couldn’t afford to leave that much of a trace. Nor could he say everything he wanted to in a letter - to make his case heard, he had to talk to Annette directly.

So, that basically left sneaking in. Ashe didn’t think he’d end up regretting that his breaking-and-entering skills had gotten rusty, but, well, here he was.

The manor grounds were barren. With no cover, he could only stroll around the outside fence and take note of which windows were lit - most were on the bottom floor, where Ashe presumed there must be a kitchen and parlor, but there was one window that stayed bright even as the city extinguished its lamps one-by-one around him. By the time that window was the only light aside from the moon, Ashe was confident it belonged to his workaholic friend.

He dropped lightly on the inside of the fence. The harsh stonework made for easy footholds. His fingers were numb from cold, but the windowsill supporting his feet was wide enough for him to peek into the room.

Sure enough, a familiar head of orange hair stooped over a desk, madly scribbling away at a pile of books. Heart light, he tapped at the outside of the glass.

No response. Well, she always had a one-track mind when it came to studying. So he knocked again, a little louder. Still nothing.

He was too afraid of knocking so loudly that he’d wake whoever was sleeping in the adjacent rooms. Already feeling guilty, he decided to just open it. Luckily, there was only a simple lock on the bottom, and some prying with his knife and good pressure from below was all it took to send the frame sliding up. He didn’t quite get it open wide enough, and the latch scraped painfully against his spine as he hauled himself in. And Annette… still hadn’t noticed.

At this point, Ashe needed to have a _long_ conversation with his friend about home security and being aware of her surroundings.

He shuffled his feet in the middle of her rug. He took one small step, then the other, before tapping her shoulder with a single finger. She glanced back.

“Hm? Oh, sorry, busy right now…” She turned back to her work.

Ashe… _really_ needed to have that conversation with her.

“Uh, sorry for interrupting, Annette, but I need to talk to you.”

Only mildly distracted, her eyes flitted back and forth between him and her stack of books, like a butterfly that didn’t know which flower to land on. Then, _finally,_ her eyes caught on him and slowly crept up to his face.

He waved.

For a moment, he thought she would faint. At least that would have been preferable to screaming.

“ _AHHHH-”_

Ashe frantically jammed his finger against his lips to tell her to keep quiet, but she’d already knocked over an inkwell, which knocked over a jar of quills, which knocked over a vase that was there for some reason, which knocked over the most precariously placed pile of books, and all of it clattered to the floor.

Every thud and shattering screech was a nail driven into Ashe’s spine. It knocked Annette out of her panic - “Oh _no,_ my _research notes!” -_ and Ashe knelt to snatch the scattered papers away from the spreading pool of ink. Their hands collided when they reached for the same paper, and she opened her mouth to scream again. This time he left politeness in the dust and clamped a hand over her mouth.

He shook his head, and then tried to rearrange his panic into a smile _It’s me, Annette, it’s me! I’m not a murderer or a thief, and if I was, this really would not have gone well for you!_

Some sort of clarity came over her face. And then her eyes overflowed with tears. She lunged forward, clamping her arms around him and sending them both stumbling back onto her bed. Footsteps thundered up the hallway, several frantic voices calling Annette’s name.

_Well, at least it’ll be easy to make up a lie to explain this,_ Ashe thought, remembering in entirely too much detail how Yuri had covered for them getting caught in the closet together. Annette leapt up from on top of him, rushing to the door.

“It’s ok, it’s ok, I’m ok! I just - I thought I saw a rat but it was just a shadow and I knocked some stuff over but you know how I am, everything is fine!” She got it all out in a single breath.

“Did something shatter? We can help you clean up, milady-”

“No no no no no! I still prefer to clean up for myself! Sorry for the noise, all of you please go to bed!”

“… If milady insists,” the servants responded. And just like that, they really did clear off. But this was Annette, so the likelihood that this was the _first_ time she’d broken a bunch of stuff in the middle of the night was low. As soon as their footfalls retreated, she tugged Ashe into another hug, voice low and quavering.

“You’re still alive! I really thought… I hadn’t heard from you for so long…”

“I’m still here,” he said, patting her back. She pulled away, still clasping his shoulders.

“What are you doing here? Why now?”

“It’s… complicated,” he started. “I can only be in Fhirdiad for a little while. And it’s better if no one else knows I’m here.”

“I heard that Count Rowe’s forces were defeated at Ailell! And that Lord Gwendal died…”

“It’s true,” Ashe admitted. The gears turned in her head. Slowly, she released his shoulders and stepped away. He followed her to help pick up the remaining books and bits of glass strewn across her floor. The ink started seeping into the edges of the fine rug. He pressed on, “But none of that has to do with why I came to see you.”

“Why did you?”

“Well… this is my first time in Fhirdiad. And I didn’t realize that things are so bad here.”

“What do you mean?” Annette asked. She pulled out an array of cleaning supplies from a bureau, and started to mop up the spilled ink.

“The refugees, mostly. And so many people in the streets… was it always like this, Annette?”

Her big eyes squeezed shut. She shook her head.

“There were always some people without a place to stay or enough food, but they could at least go to the Churches. Now that the Empire mandated that every Church of Seiros had to shut down, though…” She looked queasy. “But, I haven’t heard much about refugees? I’ve been pretty locked up here, lately.”

“They’re being kept in pens by the city gates, for weeks at a time.”

“What?” Her voice raised, and he motioned with his hand to keep her volume low. “What?” She whispered. Keeping his ears trained for any knocks and creaks in the hallway, Ashe murmured,

“Yeah. It’s horrible. Could your Uncle do anything about it?”

“I don’t know, honestly. Uncle doesn’t raise his voice much in court these days.” Her expression turned dark, more in hopelessness than anger. “He can get pretty mad when I poke my head into politics.”

Ashe accepted a dust tray, stooping to sweep up fragments of porcelain and glass. They were scattered under the mahogany desk, beneath the vibrant woolen rug, all across the wide expanse of the single room.

Ashe wanted to ask, _how can he have so much and still let all this happen?_ But he knew how Annette’s Uncle had taken in her and her mother after her father all but abandoned them, how even if she spoke of his disappointment and strictness it was always with gratitude and fondness. He’d never met Baron Dominic before, but venting his frustrations about the noble family’s lack of action wouldn’t get Ashe anywhere here.

“Has he told you why he’s supporting Cornelia’s reign?” He tried.

“From what I gather, King Lambert was proposing a lot of changes to infrastructure that would’ve been costly, and a lot of noble families were worried Dimitri would carry on after him.”

Ashe asked, “Infrastructure? Like the changes King Lambert hired Cornelia to make back during the plague?” Annette nodded. “Didn’t those changes halt the plague and save thousands of lives?” Again, Annette nodded, but it slid into a hapless shrug.

“After the fact, a lot of nobles spoke up in court that the changes were too overblown and expensive. I guess King Lambert wanted to go even further though, and mandate that all major cities in Faerghus had to make similar updates to their waterways and clinics. But… well.” They trailed off into silence, neither wanting to tread into the topic of the Tragedy that claimed their King’s life. After a silence like a toothache, Annette pressed on, “But he’s definitely not happy about a lot of what Cornelia is doing. Every noble knew that she was backed by the Empire, but I don’t think any of them realized just how much influence they’d have over the ‘Dukedom.’”

“If Prince Dimitri were alive,” Ashe started before he realized that was giving away too much. A sour cast clouded Annette’s face.

“Father thinks he is. He ran off to scour the countryside, trying to find him.”

Ashe had stumbled blindly into her sorest spot. But he couldn’t help the rush of hope the words gave him. He tucked his smile away for later.

“What would you do if he _is_ still alive?”

“I don’t think he is,” she stated. Her voice had returned to speaking volume again, and Ashe laid a hand gently on her shoulder. She paused, realizing the stretch of rug she was viciously scrubbing was already clean. She moved to another patch of carpet, not meeting his eyes. “I don’t know. Nobody in Fhirdiad cared enough to help Dimitri back then, but I don’t think they’d do any more to help Cornelia now. If he somehow took back the throne, I’m sure they’d all rush to prove their loyalty to him again. Including Uncle. Is this what you wanted to talk about?”

“I’m sorry, Annette. I didn’t mean to insult your family.” Ashe’s soft tone coaxed her into looking up again.

“No, _I’m_ sorry for getting frustrated. I know what Uncle is doing isn’t great, but every time I try to talk to him about it, he either scolds me or changes the subject. I feel so useless, shut up in here!”

“I know how you feel. There’s just… so much. And I don’t know how to fix any of it.” The black ink sunk into the fine fissures in the stone floor. No matter how they scrubbed, it may never come out. He took a deep breath. “But… that’s why I came to see you. I’ve been trying to at least get food to some of the people who’re living on the streets. It’s not much, mostly scraps here and there. There’s two girls in particular who just lost their mother, and… well, I know it’s a lot to ask, but maybe if you have some leftovers, you wouldn’t mind sharing with them?”

“Oh! That’s such a good idea! Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Really? You’re willing to help them?” Ashe beamed.

“Of course! Though, Uncle is all about keeping up appearances, but we actually don’t have much money, so I don’t know if we’ll have much excess food… And I’ll have to come up with some sort of excuse for leaving the house more often.”

“Thank you, Annette. Really. It’s… it’s just such a relief to know that someone will be there for them.”

“Aw, Ashe, don’t cry.”

“Hah, I won’t, I won’t.” He wiped an embarrassed grin away with the back of his hand.

“I’m glad there’s _something_ I can do to help. It’s definitely better than just sitting in here, wasting away on research.”

“I’m sure your research isn’t a waste.”

“Oh, I dunno. I learned so much about combat magic and tactics at the Officer’s Academy, and now I can’t use any of it! The most I’ve come up with is this parchment and quill.” She sighed, plucking an elegantly colored writing quill from the mess on the floor.

“It’s pretty! What does it do?”

Spirits lifting again, Annette grabbed a piece of parchment. It was already crammed with Annette’s precise script, along with passages in looser handwriting. Where it was folded at the corner, Ashe could see finely-drawn magical sigils, so complex they boggled his mind.

“Well, it’s not much! But Mercie is even more shut away than I am these days - we hardly get to see each other, even living in the same city. So I came up with a way we can write to each other much more quickly than if we had to mail letters back and forth. Here, let’s see if she’s there.”

She scribbled out a _Good evening!_ alongside a doodle of… a dancing cactus? A bunny rabbit? Ashe leaned in, trying to discern exactly what it was, and stumbled back in shock when new words began blooming along the parchment beside it.

_Good evening, Annie! That’s a very cute froggy._

_So it’s a frog?_ Ashe wondered, before his mind re-registered the fact that words had just appeared out of thin air.

“Is this - is that - did the parchment just respond to you on its own?”

“No, silly!” Annette giggled. “It’s Mercie!”

“Mercedes wrote that? But how?”

“With this! Or rather, it's partner.” She wiggled the parchment and quill. “It’s just something I’ve been working on… I’ve gotten the enchantment to work pretty well, lately.”

“You _made_ this? Annette, this is incredible!”

“It’s just a silly little thing.” She flushed.

“No, I’m pretty sure you’re a genius. I would have no idea of the first place to start, making something like this.”

“If you say so…” She beamed, pulling another carefully-folded piece of parchment from a drawer in the bureau. “It’s still in the works. It takes _a lot_ of ink, and I don’t know how long of a distance the spell will hold up over. Oh! I know!” She nearly clapped her hands before catching herself. “Why don’t you help me test it out? Here, here, here-”

She crowded his hands with the parchment and quill, leaning up expectantly.

“I’d like to help, but I don’t know the first thing about magic-”

“That’s alright! Just take it, and we can try writing messages to each other! That way I can see if it’ll work over more than a few leagues, _and_ you won’t have an excuse to go so long without writing anymore!”

“But you worked so hard on this, I can’t just take it from you!”

“It’s a gift, silly, a _gift._ Watch, I’ll get mad if you don’t take it.” She puffed her cheeks like a hamster. “Mercie wants to talk to you, too! I can always make another one for myself.”

“Well… thank you, Annette. I’ll take really good care of it!” Maybe he was finally fitting into his new role more, because his first thought was how useful a covert communication tool like this would be for spies. Then he immediately felt guilty. It was a gift, a precious, one-of-a-kind, hand-enchanted gift! And he had already asked a favor of her… “I only wish there was something I could give you in return.”

She shook her head, hair like fiery petals in the wind.

“I’m still just happy you’re alive! But… If you want to…” She flushed, spun her fingers, lowered her eyes behind timid lashes. “I’ve been writing some letters to the others, but I can’t send anything to the Fraldarius or Gautier territories. Maybe you could deliver them for me?”

_Oh,_ Ashe realized, _she thinks I left Count Rowe’s forces to join up with our classmates._ Sure enough, she passed over three neatly-twined bundles of envelopes, labeled _Ingrid, Sylvain, Felix._ The _Felix_ stack was conspicuously bigger the the others. Apple-red, Annette held on with wobbly fingertips, not quite relinquishing them to Ashe.

“O-on second thought, maybe I shouldn’t… They’re kind of embarrassing. No, I definitely shouldn’t!”

“You should,” Ashe found himself muttering. “It’s not too late.”

Her eyes widened, red-rimmed, and she dipped her head to hide away a sniffle.

“You really think so?”

“I do.”

_What a hypocrite I am,_ Ashe thought. _I had so many chances to tell him, but always one more excuse not to. And now, there’s no letter that could reach him._

_Will these letters ever find who they’re meant for?_

After a long silence, Annette let go. Ashe tucked the letters into his breast pocket. They gave each other one last, long, hug.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise Annette!! Also, if there are any Tellius fans reading, I hope you enjoyed the silly cameo, hah. 
> 
> Ashe and Yuri still have a ways to go before they really understand each other, huh...
> 
> Next time!!:  
> -Hapi makes her debut!  
> -2k words of roasting a pheasant


End file.
